The Princes of Shadows
by The Brilliant Fool
Summary: CHAPTER NINETEEN finally! ! Marianne can outwit anyone in the Norman Court, but when she comes to England, she finds her skills sorely tested. Will she be signing her own death warrant by attempting to help her friends? Please do R&R, I enjoy it so much!
1. Prologue

Prologue

My name is Marian.

My name is Marian, but I was born Marianne, daughter of Arnaud de Quesnel, a Norman lord with lands and titles in England. I claim no loyalty with the Norman court, though I was raised there, with the other Norman nobility, waiting on the king in Poitiers. Like Richard the Lionheart, I was an English noble who had never lived in England, who claimed nothing in England but that which gave me the power I had. My name was Marianne, and this is the story of how I became English.

Richard was deeply entrenched in the Crusades, heavily neglectful of his kingdom, and heartily disliked by his subjects. The Crusades were a popular idea, to reclaim the Christian Holy Land, but they brought tax after tax onto the people. John, his younger brother, was, if possible, even worse than Richard, power-hungry and bitter. He had amassed a group of nobles and knights loyal to him, poised as ever to overthrow his brother and his brother's justiciar. Nothing was certain anymore, and nothing seemed safe.

And I was riding into it.

I had no idea, as I was slumped over my horse's neck in the pouring rain, what was in store for me. I had no idea that soon I would come face to face with adventure, and intrigue, and injustice. I was blissfully unaware of what damage I would do.

This is not a ballad. This is not a fairytale, in which the lines between hero and villain are firmly drawn. There is no bold outlaw, there is no loving damsel, there is no foolish adversary. Things, I fear, are more brutal than that. Harder than that. More complex than can be explained in verse.

I wish to tell you my story, my real story, and if you do not believe me you will not be the first. But believe me, and I will show you a history which to me is more wonderful than anything that has been written, more magical than anything that has been sung or woven, and more honest than anything performed, because it is true.

My name is Marian, and this is the story of my death.


	2. Chapter One

"My lady?" the maid curtsied, and I stared at her blankly as I translated her words rather slowly into French, then thought of what to reply in French and translated it into English again.

"That will be all, Mary, thank you. Go and get some sleep," the girl looked surprised, as if she had been expecting me to request her assistance as I bathed my poor, tired muscles and prepared for bed. Never having been one for using servants to bathe my intimate body parts, I had always preferred to be alone during this particular part of the ritual. Perhaps the maidservants would be shocked to learn how often I bathed, once a month being the preferred method for those in England as well as France, but I had always delighted in being clean over being warm.

I unlaced my bodice, quickly dispatching my clothing and stepping into the shockingly hot water. The April air would soon render it lukewarm, so this would need to be fast.

I sank into the water gratefully, rubbing myself down vigorously with the lye soap that left my skin tingling painfully and my scalp hot, and soaking in the feeling of complete privacy. I had barely had a moment to myself through this whole journey, what with my father's steward keeping a watchful eye on me everywhere I went. This was no escape from Normandy and its pomp. This was to be isolated house arrest to safeguard my virginity.

My father was destitute, with barely enough money in yearly tithes to pay his way, and almost nothing for my dowry, and since I was no Norman beauty, with my dark hair and eyes, he had no hope of a rich lordling valuing my body over my money. I'd been sent to the manor to ensure the preservation of my maidenhead or to live out the remainder of my life alone. This was no escape, this was prison.

I knew the water would soon be cold, but I let myself relax into it a bit more, easing away the stiffness of my legs from riding and washing away the layers of dirt from the road. Tomorrow I would have to meet with my father's steward, and discuss my role in this household, and his, and my father's goals in sending me here. I would have to cast my eyes down and submit and obey as I had always done, and allow the running of my manor to be taken over by the swaggering, over-fed ass. I dearly wished I could say all the things I wished to say to him, and to his preachings on the importance of virginity and honor, and to the world as a whole. But I couldn't, and I knew it. I wanted to survive more.

So I let the desire go before it got hold of me. It was getting easier, now, I thought, to let things go. When I was younger, my mother had told me I used to be consumed with passions, and would focus on one thing intently for hours at a time. But now I found it easy to let go of the things I knew I could never change. They ceased to interest me, when they reached that point, and I could almost see myself becoming exactly like every other Norman lady, with the same attitudes and the same cares, or lack thereof. I already had their subservient nature. It depressed me thoroughly.

I opened my eyes, determined to let that particular frustration go as well, and climbed out of the tub, rushing to the table with the towels to rub myself down vigorously before I froze to death. My hair would take longer, I knew, and I moved closer to the fire to coax it dry before going to bed.

A chill breeze worked its way through my window and wrapped itself around me, making me shiver. I renewed my task with vigor, and finally, exhausted, tired, and cold, I fell asleep.

* * *

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

The morning was gray and chilly, just as every morning had been since I had arrived on English shores. By midmorning, the already soft, wet ground had been churned up into a veritable lake around the estate. Fat, gray drops pelted down from the glowering sky onto the servants' heads as they ran about their tasks, pulling drowning pigs out of the bog, salvaging all they could from the kitchen gardens, bringing in the laundry.

I felt useless. The feeling was not new to me, having lived at court and accomplishing next to nothing there as well, but here it was different. _There_ I had been useless simply because there was no use for me beside what was expected of any Norman lady. _Here _I felt useless because I couldn't help and I so desperately wanted to. My chaperones and stewards expected me to continue life here as I had always done in court, if without the benefit of even the most useless of all my companions. But I could no longer avoid attention as I had always done, and the feeling of ennui grew.

So I watched as the rain poured down on the heads of my servants and wondered what I could do to aid these people who were so used to living without a mistress. They had no more use for me than I had for them: I was merely the daughter of the man who granted them leave to live on his lands, and they were the ones who grew my food. Cut, dried, done.

It was in this limbo that my steward, Guillaume Pusillanime, found me. Our meeting that day was to be held in his study, but he came upon me at my perch near the window, watching the washerwomen take down the laundry before it become completely soaked through. Had I not heard his approach—indeed, one would have to completely deaf not to—I would have been aware of his presence by the familiar, hated smell of his body and his breath. It hung on him in cloying waves of ale and old gravy and sweat, for he was a large man of large appetites. I found it ironic that he had decided to inform me of the importance of remaining virginal when he himself had no qualms about relieving girls of their virginities.

When I did not turn around immediately to acknowledge him, he announced himself. "Lady Marianne. I trust you have not forgotten about our meeting?" He spoke to me as one would to a small child, and I fought the urge to lift my chin to him. I let my annoyance go as I turned to him and curtsied slightly. "No indeed, sir, I have not, but I found myself fascinated by the rain. Forgive me if I am late?" I knew I wasn't, and he knew it as well, so he did not answer, but held out his arm to lead me, not to his study, as I had thought, but instead to the hall, its large tables dusty with disuse, the tapestries thick with cobwebs. A man in friar's robes sat in the middle of one of the tables, and after leading me to my chair, Pusillanime took his own seat, facing me down the table.

I waited for introduction to the friar, but Guillaume had already steepled his fingers thoughtfully, and was regarding me sternly, and I knew he would get right to his point, not even doing me the courtesy of knowing in front of whom I would be lectured this morning. I fixed my eyes on Guillaume in a way that I severely hoped was both reverent and innocent.

"My lady, your father has entrusted me with your safety until such a day as he sees fit to accept an appropriate offer of marriage for you. He has entrusted me to protect that which is most precious. This you already know, as I have told you before, have I not?" I dropped my eyes modestly and nodded, hoping he would finish this soon.

"Now, that being said, you must learn to accustom yourself to your new way of living. We will not be traveling to court in London, I do not think, unless your father commands it. There will be little company for you here. Which, I think," he continued, now regarding me from the corner of his eye as if I were a carbuncle he wished would disappear, "will be supremely beneficial to you as you contemplate what it means to be a Norman wife and lady. Reflection, prayer, and solitude are what have been commanded of me, and I intend to carry out my duties in the fullest as your father's steward, as you may hope to do one day as a wife."

The friar shifted uncomfortably, for it was not the first time Pusillanime had made a reference to my purity. I kept my eyes on my hands and my hands in my lap as I was supposed, and let my mind wander to other places. I wondered if the milkmaids had managed to complete their tasks without destroying the milk with rain, I wondered if all the pigs had been saved, I wondered if we would have any dry linens tomorrow. I wondered what Eleanor of Aquitaine would have said to Pusillanime had she been in my place.

"This is friar Tuck, of the abbey. He is here to hear your confession, and also to report on your attendance at daily Mass. Is that understood?"

I answered in the affirmative, trying not the let my anger and indignation show on my face. Confession was to be heard in a house of God in the spirit of contrition, not in the great hall of my own manor where everyone could hear me! And besides, I did not need one more person watching my every more, respectable or not. I imagined Queen Eleanor calmly breaking Guillaume down with two or three well-chosen sentences, and wished with all my heart I had the freedom to say what I wanted to him.

Then I let the thought go as I nodded. "Yes, Pusillanime, I understand."

There was silence for a moment, and Guillaume's eyes flicked between the extremely uncomfortable Tuck and my bland face. I made no move to address the friar, and the friar began a studious examination of his linked hands. Finally, Guillaume raised a hand in expectant impatience. "Well?"

"Pardon?" I asked innocently, crinkling my brow. Guillaume gestured wordlessly to the friar, and I made a great show of slowly understanding his point. The friar still did not meet my eyes, but I could feel the flick of impatience stir in him as well.

"Oh. Pusillanime, surely, sir, you cannot expect me to give confession here, in my hall, where anyone may hear? Confession is between the confessor, the holy man, and God, is that not so, Friar?"

"Indeed."

"For shame, Pusillanime, not knowing that. I will give confession to this man, but it will be in private, for though we have moved to a cold, uncivilized country, I cannot fathom that my father intended us to lose all grasp of propriety and convention. Perhaps you mistook his orders to you?" My eyes flicked down to my hands as I made the suggestion, as if I were embarrassed to contradict him. "You must forgive me, Pusillanime, but I cannot give confession in so public a place."

Guillaume sighed heavily after another moment's pause, got up laboriously from his seat, and guided the friar and me to a small side room. After he had closed the door behind his retreating back, the friar and I stood and regarded each other. This was not the way confession was done, and both of us were highly aware of it. Usually, the priest would not be able to see the confessor's face, making it easier for the confessor to believe that he or she is speaking directly to God Himself. This was too intimate, too forward, and I balked at the idea as I would not had there been a barrier between us.

The friar had been taking measure of me. That I could see as plainly as the air of dismissal that replaced his contemplation. He had decided that I was unworthy of much further thought, being useless as I was, and spineless to boot.

A flash of anger flared up in me, and before I could concentrate on letting it float away with all my other indignation, I began my own measurement of Tuck. He was a short man (I stood a good half a head taller than he), but he carried himself as though he felt no insecurity. I wondered, not unsacreligiously, if that was God's work or his own. His bald patch was well-kept, and he looked as if he had never gone without a meal in his life, but there was nothing of the insufferable exhorbatence that often floated about the clergy in those days. I felt no fear of what he might report to Guillaume, as I felt that he probably disliked Pusillanime more than he could ever dislike me. Despite his immediate, brusque dismissal of me, I decided that I could like him well enough, if he was not difficult.

But by the way he was looking at me, I gathered that he would be as difficult as he was allowed.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession." I did not sit down, but stood by the window, feeling the chill soak into as drops hit the sill and splashed onto my dress. My voice, I noted with some satisfaction, was stronger than it had been when I had addressed Guillaume. Tuck's eyes narrowed a bit, and he replied, "Speak, my child."

I almost smiled at his slightly disrespectful tone, and at the use of a diminutive when he clearly knew to whom he was speaking. I told him of all the mortal sins I had committed during my time away from regular confessions, of which there weren't many. I had never had much time to commit any in the first place, and away from civilization, it had been nigh impossible. After I was done and was told of my penance, silence reigned again between us. I cocked my head to one side, not taking my eyes off him, receiving the small triumph of seeing his blood curdle in frustration, especially as he tried to remain impassive. And when the silence got too heavy, it was not I who spoke first.

"You find this country uncivilized, my lady? I am sorry to hear it." He could come up with no more by way of modifying his tone, and stopped there.

"You know as well as I, Friar Tuck, that I said what I did in order to make sure I did not confess in so open a place. Not that it matters, for even now I cannot guarantee that we are not being overheard. Choose your words with care." My eyes were hard as I looked at him, and, shocked for a moment, he opened his mouth to say something else. "You also seem to forget, Friar, that I am a lady, a noble, a Norman. Three very important reasons for you to be careful of the way you are seen to react to me. You may dislike me, and you may, but if you want to protect yourself, I suggest you dislike me in private.

"And I know you dislike me for those reasons. I am not a fool, Friar, though you thought me valueless. I am Norman, and I am here where I was not before. But do not be a fool yourself. Modulate your tone. Be respectful here, if nowhere else, for I cannot help you if you are punished." I said all this quietly, in a soft tone that belied the actual words I was using, hoping that anyone able to hear me would only make out the tone, and not the words themselves. "Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the only one who finds this situation unfavorable."

The Friar was looking at me differently now, the measuring look back in his eyes. He inclined his head a bit, then bowed to me as I curtsied to him, a man of the cloth, and went to leave. "Oh, and Friar?" he turned back to me. "I understand why you did in the first place, but to not make the mistake of miscalculating me again. Have we come to an understanding?"

There was another silence as we regarded each other for a final time. Then he bowed again and said "Yes, Lady Marian." I flinched at the terrible, purposeful mispronunciation of my name, but nodded cordially to him, turning my face back to the downpour outside.

My steward and my father be damned. This was my house now, and I would have to do whatever it took to keep it that way. And if I had to be duplicitous, subservient, and under-handed to accomplish it, then I would be more so than Guillaume would ever be able to suspect.

So there was a use for me, after all.


	3. Chapter Two

Far away from me, the ground was shaking. Tales of nobles and knights set upon and robbed by a band of outlaws who sought shelter in Sherwood Forest had spread, grown fantastic, had turned into ballads and poems and stories whispered to children. Determined to antagonize the Sheriff of Nottingham and the taxes he collected, the leader of this ragtag bunch had grown into something of a local hero. His had a band of men, they said, were faster than the wind. They lived together in the heart of Sherwood Forest, living off the land and surviving the harshest conditions. He robbed the rich and gave to the poor in protestation of Nottingham's high taxes of the impoverished. He was handsome, he was cunning, he was righteous. He was a hero.

I did not know him yet. I would not know him, in fact, for a few months still. But slowly, his legend spread through the country, peasant to peasant, lord to lord. Terror and wonder at his fabled powers (a gaze that killed, a pack of wolves at his back, everywhere at once, able to command the sun) grew, creating unrest in the low class and unease in the high.

He was so infamous that soon even I, the cloistered Norman lady, had heard of him. But it was not until I received my first visitors as lady of the house that the legend of Robin Hood became real.

A messenger rode up to the manor, waving a letter meant to look extremely expensive and very important. I was in the yard; helping Mary the housemaid inventory the wagon of produce we had received for levies from the farmers, as Guillaume was sleeping off the previous night's exploits in his chamber. The messenger, in reality a tiny man upon a very large horse, raised his falsetto voice above the general din of the yard, and said "Lady Marian—"

_Marianne, Marianne, is it really so hard for you English to pronounce? _

"—I have been sent to inform you of the imminent arrival of his lordship Robert de Beauforest and his daughter, the lady Elizabeth, on the morrow."

I raised my eyebrows. "Have you indeed? Your master presumes much, messenger—"

"Benjamin, Lady Marian."

"Benjamin, your master takes many liberties with both me and my staff," Beside me, Mary was still, as were those in the near vicinity, watching this exchange. Pusillanime might never know of this conversation. Now was a chance to win my people over, if I could handle this correctly.

_Please God, let me handle this correctly. _

"Milady?" He looked at me inquisitorially, his laughably high voice rising another half octave.

"He sends to you _inform _me of his arrival, not to request my hospitality, which I must now extend to him satisfactorily tomorrow. Had it occurred to him, I wonder, to consider whether or not my own recent arrival delayed the jobs normally done, making it inconvenient to house a party of nobles and servants here for an extended amount of time, and since I surmise that Beauforest will not be merely staying for a night, he is being very rude. Also," I said, looking at him in disdain, "he has not trained his messengers in the art of etiquette. It is customary to dismount when addressing a recipient of higher rank."

Benjamin blushed and looked sheepish, and made to dismount. "No bother this time, sir. You may return to your master after you have taken sup in our kitchen, and tell him that he may as well come now as he had planned, but he need not feel so free with my hospitality in the future."

Benjamin was ushered to the stables, and Mary turned to me. "What are we going to do, lady? We do not have the resources to house a party of any size!"

I smiled wryly at her. "I know, Mary. But I cannot refuse them hospitality, no matter how unprepared we are. That is the quickest way to make enemies, and that is how a manor like this fails."

"Then what are we going to do?" She was so worried, her small forehead creasing with anxiety.

I considered, and then asked, "If you were me, and you were in this position, what would you do?"

"Cry, milady," I laughed at her earnest answer, then waited, looking at her pointedly. "I—suppose I would continue life as though there were no visitors here, cooked the same food, did the same daily activities. I would refuse to let him dominate my household."

I smiled broadly, truly impressed, and winked at her. She gaped at me, shocked. She had never seen me truly smile before, and I laughed again at her surprise. "Exactly, Mary. This Robert de Beauforest, whoever he is, obviously thinks very highly of himself. The quickest way to put him in his place, and dissuade him from ever coming to visit, is to treat him just like everyone else."

"Won't he be offended?"

"Oh, certainly. But there is a very large difference between being insulted by being turned away and being insulted by not being fawned over. But I will need your help for this. Can I trust you to help me?" Again she blinked, disbelieving my request. Then she shyly returned my smile and said, "Yes, lady Marian, you can."

Finally I had one ally. But my ability to hold onto her would be a different story.

The Richard de Beauforest was fat, tall, and lewd. His daughter, by contrast, was slender, of middling height, and so quiet one could completely forget she was in the same vicinity. Her betrothed showed her father's self-love: he was a large, crass knight with extensive holdings and a brutish face who went by the name of Sir Ranulf de Greasby.

The two men picked at their food, obviously disgusted by the simple fare I had told to cook to make. The daughter, Elizabeth, ate a little more, but set her knife down halfway through the meal, and no one noticed her close inspection of my hall as the others ate or pretended to eat.

"Fallen on hard times, Lady Marian?" grumbled the Beauforest darkly. I turned my eyes, carefully, blandly cordial, and said "Is it not to your liking, my lord? I apologize, but this is a small manor, and we must feed everyone on what we grow here."

"Rubbish. I know of your father's status; you cannot conceal your poverty from me." He reached under the table and scratched himself. I pretended not to notice. Elizabeth fixed her large eyes on my face, and Guillaume, who sat to my left, was ominously silent.

I smiled disarmingly and said earnestly, "I was concealing nothing, my lord. I spoke only the truth. Our manor is still reeling from the addition of my own retinue not a month earlier. We have been unprepared to entertain. Forgive me if I offend, my lord," I said, bowing my slightly over my plate, knowing my eyes had not betrayed the contempt I was feeling for him. Guillaume shot a sideways glance at me as if to stifle me, but at a table of nobles, he was no longer the one in power. Elizabeth flicked her eyes to her father, then to her fiancé, and then flickered a small smile at me. I tried not to blink in surprise, for up to then, I admit, I had thought her incapable of facial expression. I cursed myself for dismissing her as easily as Tuck had dismissed me on my first day. Then I tried not to smile as I imagined Tuck's facial expression watching Beauforest and de Greasby wolfing down enough food for three.

"It seems inappropriate, Lady Marian, to be denying your equals their due when you coddle your peasants so disgustingly." That was from Greasby, who seemed very pleased that he had come up with a retort so quickly.

_Well done. So you can form sentences, can you? Can you also breathe and walk at the same time? Quite a catch you've found your daughter, my lord de Beauforest._

My temper, which had been under such control for so long, broke under Greasby's disgusting leer.

I smiled again, wider, this time. "The peasants grow the food we are eating. If they die, what would happen to life as we know it? I'd have to till the fields myself, and save the pigs from drowning in the rain, and cook, and clean, and I don't know what else. I like to imagine that I take good care of myself through them." I sent a small, apologetic smile to Kenneth, my manservant, as he poured Beauforest another cup of mulled wine. "So you see, milord, you are mistaken. I am really very interested in not having to muck with the pigs." Guillaume looked as if he wanted to stand up and strangle me, and I knew instinctively that this would win me another six hour prayer session at the abbey.

Beauforest was also displeased. "Hmph. Not right for a Norman to be too close to the Saxons. That brings about bad blood, so it does." Now he seemed to be muttering to himself, staring off into the shadows the candle in front of him made on the table. His daughter, however, seemed to feel the weight of the words acutely, for she appeared to shrink from the inside, drawing herself inward once more. I bit back a snort of contempt, for the majority of the English nobles not at the Norman court were not all Norman anyway, but part Saxon, or all Saxon, and thus seen as not "choice" company. I sat for a moment, trying to think of something to say, then realized before it was too late that I would be much better suited by nodding modestly and eating my dinner.

I was correct, it seemed, for Beauforest continued as if he had not heard me. "Soon end up with another bloody Robin Hood and his bunch of thieves if we're not lucky—watch out for—brigands and rogues—"

"Robin Hood?" I queried, breaking my momentary silence and looking from Elizabeth to her father to Greasby. "Surely he is just an exaggeration of a story." They looked shocked, as if I had announced I ritually danced pagan rites in the fields at night.

"You don't know of Robin Hood?" Elizabeth burst out. She caught herself and returned to her former state of quiet and social solitude under her father's glare.

Good daughters, after all, are rarely seen and never heard.

"Well, I have heard the stories, of course. Robin Hood, the outlaw, fighting against tyranny in Nottinghamshire, robbing the rich to give to the poor and all that. But I had just assumed that he was a combination of a single deed and vast imagination. Are you saying he's a real man?"

"Very real, Lady Marian," said Greasby, his voice grave, "and very dangerous. He leads a band of brutes and assassins to attack and capture any caravan traveling through Sherwood Forest, leads conquests in Nottingham, persecutes Norman lords and landed gentry. He is a thief, and his followers are killers," he said this with an almost gleeful air, as if he was enjoying the effect his words had on the table. They meant very little to me, but Elizabeth again seemed to draw within herself, he bottom lip trembling. Neither her father nor her betrothed paid her any mind.

_Why, she is in love with Robin Hood!_ I thought, gazing at the child fondly. _She can't have met him, but must love him from the stories she's heard. And now they are ridiculing her for her infatuation. _I made up my mind, then, that I greatly disliked this Beauforest and his pet Greasby. Like my own father, they treated a good Norman daughter with contempt and disgust. And while there was little I could do about my own situation, I made up my mind to help her in any small way if I could.

Then Norman fathers would understand that their daughters were not just baggage.

I reached across the table and gestured to Kenneth, smiling happily at my guests. "Mulled wine, anyone?"

* * *

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned, it has been a day since my last confession." I sat in the confessional in the Abbey, this time with a proper screen between Tuck and I. It had become a familiar pattern with the two of us, as I "contemplated on purity" through prayer and embroidery. Guillaume, furious at my outspokenness over dinner the night before, had sent me straight back to the Abbey this morning in punishment. I would not leave before midday, I did not think.

"What mortal sin have you committed in your day past of embroidery and seclusion?" Tuck asked, sounding as exasperated as I felt.

"Careful, Friar, that question borders on sacrilegious," I said, taking glee in his annoyance that _I_ was telling _him_ what was sacrilege and what wasn't. "I wished bodily harm upon Lord Robert de Beauforest and Sir Ranulf de Greasby. I took pleasure in the discomfort of my steward, and I wished to help Elizabeth de Beauforest disobey her father. I want to gain the loyalty and respect of my peasants, which apparently is a sin, and three times just this morning I have contemplated taking to the woods like Robin Hood." Unspoken remained the obvious conclusion that I was in no way equipped for such a move, and so my internal rebellion had been laughably feeble.

"These are grave sins indeed," said Tuck, his tone for once no clue to what he was thinking. "Then you must approve of Robin Hood's actions, then mustn't you? Will you not include that in your sinning?"

Had Tuck been in league with Guillaume, I would have suspected him of drilling me for something to report back to my steward. But Tuck hated Guillaume, while he merely resented me, so I knew his question was more than a desperate attempt at gaining some information that would ingratiate him.

"What do you want to know, Friar? I don't know if I approve of his actions or not, but I know I have been taught to dislike illegal activities, such as thievery. I have been taught to think that the poor are there for my service, and to leave their affairs to those who better understand money, so—"

"And if I'm not mistaken, you have been confessing your frustrations over these things for the past month, yes?" I was surprised by the vehemence in his voice.

"Friar, I think I should ask you the question you just asked me. Do _you _approve of Robin Hood's actions?"

There was a silence as Tuck fully understood that he might have said too much, and was unsure of what else to say that would not get him in serious trouble. But he couldn't, and so it was I who said, "I think, Friar, that you and I are in similar circumstances. We have both been taught differently from how we feel. I long to do and think how I please without interference from anyone, and you desire nothing more from your faith than your faith itself. It must be difficult to see the bishops getting fat and rich when you wish to live your life piously. I was taught to not care for those not in my class and not directly associated with my marriage and duties as a lady, but do I approve of what Robin Hood does?" I paused, smiling fondly at the shadows in the corner of the confessional. "I think you may come to your own conclusion, Friar."

"What do you want from me, Lady Marian?" It was a question I had not expected him to ask, and I did not have a suitable answer for it. He had silenced me with his refusal to play games.

"Fifteen Hail Mary's, fifty Our Father's," he said, giving me my penitence and dismissing me in one breath. I left the confessional quietly, more determined than ever to find an idea to help Elizabeth.

As it turned out, I didn't need to wait for an idea to form, because Elizabeth found me later that night.

It was very dark, the kind of dark often found in nightmares or stories of the devil. My own candle spread only two feet of light before it was swallowed up by the all-consuming blackness.

I was writing in the account ledger, cataloguing the goods we had received and what we had spent, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Thinking immediately of Beauforest or Greasby, I turned sharply around, raising my quill sharpener as a weapon.

But it was Elizabeth who stood there.

She was tiny, fragile, with a heart shaped face and large eyes that glistened in the light. The candle illuminated the darkness under her cheekbones, the circles under her eyes. She looked sick, and she was trembling, looking at me as if I was ready to kill her.

I realized belatedly that I was still brandishing the small knife, and I set it down on the table in front of me.

"What is it, Elizabeth?" I asked, calling her by her first name, a move usually considered too intimate. She didn't notice, however, and said, "May I speak with you, milady?"

"Of course," I said, closing the ledger book with a snap and gesturing to a chair against the wall, "bring that here, and we shall talk."

She moved the chair with a little difficulty, and I could see the bones in her back as she carried the weight of it back toward me. _Damn, I should have offered to do it, _I realized belatedly. _Not very hospitable of you, Marianne. _

"What did you wish to talk about?" I said, trying to look as sympathetic as possible while my mind railed against the way her collar bone jutted from her skin. Either she was being starved or starving herself. I knew immediately that I would do whatever she asked of me, and understood, through my haze of sympathy, the danger of that kind of thinking.

"How old are you, milady?" she asked, snapping me out of my reverie. I blinked once or twice, then said "I'm seventeen."

"And still unmarried? I'm fifteen, and my father says I am an old maid." It was the custom to marry girls young, I knew, probably a world-wide custom. Some as young as fourteen were wed to men as old as forty, so that they could have as many children as possible before they died in childbirth. To reach my age and not be wed was either a great achievement or a blight on humanity, depending on how one looked at it.

"Your father puts a certain slant on things, to be sure," I said, "Why do you ask?"

" Have you ever been in love, milady?" she said, ignoring my question, or perhaps answering it in her own way.

I paused, and smiled, and said, "No."

There was a silence as she realized that I was not quite the kindred spirit she had thought.

"No," I said, "I tried not to fall in love. I knew that if I did, it would be with someone my father would never approve of, and I would end up disappointed. No, Elizabeth, I tried not to."

" So did I!" She exclaimed, now looking very upset with herself. "So did I, but I couldn't help it! I love him now and I always will and it's too hard—it's just too hard!" She began to cry softly, clutching at herself and weeping like only a young, disappointed girl can weep.

"Because you're going to marry Greasby?" I asked quietly. She nodded and cried a little harder.

Normally, I have no patience with tears. They don't change anything, don't do anyone any good, really usually end up making things worse. But in this girl two years my junior, there was the mirror of what I could have been if I allowed myself to dream of a brighter future After all, neither of us was really young. No one was. The peasants were born to work until they died, and have children to work in their stead. Nobles were born to pomp and glitter, to full meals and tours and good clothes. But none of us was free. By the time we were six, each woman had accepted that in a decade or less we would be married for convenience and advantage, probably dying before seeing whether or not any of her children would live to have children of their own. Knowledge like that does not keep one young very long.

"What can you do? Run away and join this outlaw of yours?" Her head snapped up, and she looked at me, momentarily shocked out of her tears.

"How did you know?"

I smiled and patted her hand, amused that she had thought it a well-kept secret. "I'm good at watching people. You seemed quite verbal about this Robin Hood, and so it wasn't hard to guess. What I want to know is how you managed to meet this rebel leader in the first place."

But she looked puzzled, even scandalized. "I'm not in love with Robin Hood! I love Alan, his friend, a musician. Do not misunderstand me, milady, Sir Robin is a good man, but he is not _my _man. I met him at Prince John's court, where he was under the Prince's employ."

"Saxon?"

"Yes," she said defensively, as if I were about to attack her.

"That does complicate things," I said mildly.

"You disapprove?" she asked, disappointed. I was falling from grace very quickly.

"No-o," I said slowly, "but I think you should understand exactly what it is you are asking for. Alan is a good man, and you love him, but you have the luxury of being able to dream. If you marry him, you'll be cutting yourself off from many of the luxuries you've lived with all your life. You'll need to adjust yourself to realize that there are losses in either choice, Elizabeth. Besides, he lives in a forest. What kind of home is that for you?" I could have asked myself what I thought I was doing, trying to dissuade her from doing what I wished I could do, but I pushed that thought away, unwilling to back down.

"I don't care where we live, or what I have to give up. I want to marry him, because—because—"

"Because Greasby is a dog?" I asked quietly.

"He killed his first wife, you know," she said quietly. I stared at her, aghast. "She ran from him because of his cruelty, and she was found dead two days later. He's an excellent hunter." I could think of nothing to say, but my heart was beating heavily with horror and disgust.

"You see now?" She leaned across to me and took my wrist. "You see how it is? I cannot marry Greasby in two months, and yet I fear that if I do not, Alan will be killed on my behalf. Either path is unthinkable, and I don't know what to do." She looked on the verge of tears again. More to keep her quiet than anything else, I said, "I will try to help you, Elizabeth, if I can. I'm not promising anything, remember, and even our most well planned strategy may fail. But I will try."

As she leaned across the space between us to embrace me like a sister, I kicked myself mentally for accepting a dangerous, reckless mission. I knew that I could very well be hung for treason, or persecuted by an angry nobility. But I also knew that when the messenger arrived a week later, inviting me to join the prince's Tour at Nottingham Castle, I would accept, knowing that it would bring me closer to both Elizabeth and our collected goal.

What I did not realize, however, was that it would also bring me closer to Robin Hood, and man very unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Or that, in a very short time, I myself would understand Elizabeth's heartache.


	4. Chapter Three

It took a very short time to pack everything. Whatever I had brought with me to England had stayed within a relatively small radius of my room, and I had not brought much. Mary and I did most of the packing, though Guillaume had balked at the idea of me packing my own possessions. But as I refused to budge on the subject, and as he was thrilled to be moving within noble circles again, he did no object for long.

It had taken awhile to convince him of the idea in the first place, though. He had been determined to follow my father's instructions to the letter, and that did not include waiting on Prince John on his tour to Nottingham. But, two days after the messenger from Nottingham Castle had extended the Prince's invitation; he had given in to his own desire for better company, and better women, then were to be found at the manor.

So now Mary and I were packing up my last two trunks. We had gotten accustomed to each other, Mary and I, and I found I was rather enjoying her company. She had and openness and honesty about her that I valued and secretly coveted, and at moments seemed to forget the barrier between us to speak openly. It was in such a moment that she turned to me that morning.

"I don't see why we're leaving," she said as she folded my gowns into a trunk. I was busy collecting the small amount of jewelry I still possessed, and did not register her comment for a moment.

"_Comment? _Oh—it's the custom for nobility to move from estate to estate with their retinue, especially with the prince on tour," I carefully closed the small box full of _bijoux_ and placed it in the corner of my trunk.

"I know that, milady, but I still don't understand why _we're _leaving. Forgive me, madam, but you are far from the ordinary Norman nobility, and I was just suspecting you'd be different from all the rest when it came to custom and tradition."

I looked up at her from where I was kneeling over a trunk full of documents. "You're very casual in you address of me, Mary," She immediately looked bashful and turned away with a mumbled "Sorry, milady," but I stopped her.

"Don't apologize. That's actually the most flattering thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you." I smiled at her, and she flushed and looked down at her hands, perhaps ashamed at how insolent she had been. I pressed on, suddenly ashamed of myself for replacing the barrier. "I don't like court at all. You're right. But I need to go there now, so I need to put up with it. Besides, how would it look if the Prince went on tour so near to me, and I didn't pay my dues to him? Especially husbandless and old as I am, with so much to gain from association with his court?"

Mary was nodding, now seated on the lid of my last trunk. "It would be rude. Odd."

"_Exactement_. And after what Beauforest said about my methods concerning the vassals on my land, I cannot afford to have him or anyone else spread rumors about my habits. It could very well be dangerous to everyone who lives here. So t_hat _is why we are leaving, Mary."

She nodded again shrewdly, taking in all the information I had just given her.I felt another wave of fondness for her as she began to understand the intricacies of noble lifeI wondered, if I told her the truth about why we were going, if she would admire it, approve of it, and help. Or would she, I thought, think I was crazy to try and help Elizabeth escape a life of comfort to live as a minstrel's wife in the middle of a forest?

I stopped folding, running my fingers over the lip of the trunk. _Was _I doing the right thing, helping Elizabeth marry someone who was so beneath her? It might make her happy for a time, even years, but what happened when she realized how hard life was, and how ill prepared she was for it? If I was going to help her, it couldn't be to spite my father, or the Norman Court, because they would never feel the sting of this little rebellion. It couldn't be because I was angry about my own fate. If Elizabeth's goal was to be my goal, it would need to be for her reasons, not my own.

And if I was supposed to be doing what was right for Elizabeth, shouldn't I be pushing her to follow a course in which she would be provided for into her old age? Was I condemning her to live in poverty, starving in order to scrounge food for her children as they lived in their hut on some Norman lordling's land?

I propped my elbow on the trunk, then put my head in my hand, thinking. I had promised to help her, and I was bound to that promise no matter my own misgivings. I couldn't force her to want what she didn't want, and I couldn't tell her she was choosing the wrong thing if I was going to maintain the one friendship I had made during my time here.

I smiled as a thought came to me. This wasn't a question I could solve myself.

I would need a priest.

* * *

"Chin up, Friar Tuck," I said encouragingly as Tuck glowered down at the neck of his mule. He had been singularly acidic the entire way there, which had taken the better part of a day, and now, as Nottingham Castle loomed into view, had grown even more sullen. He shot a glance at me in which I was sure he was thinking decidedly unchristian thoughts, and straightened his back, casting his eyes toward our destination.

"Anyone would think you don't want to be here," I said, gazing at Nottingham Castle as well so that Guillaume, looking back at us, would not see anything amiss in our conduct.

"I don't want to be here," he said, coming laughably close to sulking. I bit back a smile, and said, "well, someone has to hear all of my daily doings and sins, and it should be someone Guillaume trusts to do his job, shouldn't it?" It had gratified me to learn that when called upon to report my activities, Tuck had recounted minor infractions and had not related anything I had said that would result in my punishment. I had been right, he disliked Guillaume much more than he disliked me.

_Probably due to Guillaume's lecherous nature_, I thought, glancing in concern at Mary, who rode in the cart that held all my trunks. Guillaume was riding proudly beside it, ostensibly for its protection, but no one was fooled. Mary was very pretty, and Guillaume was very convinced of his own power.

Tuck seemed to read my mind, for he said, "I doubt Pusillanime will be greatly concerned with the sins you commit here." I made a sound signaling my agreement, then pulled my attention to the castle. "It's smaller than I had thought," I said, for indeed, as castles went, it was positively cozy. _That might cause some problems in the future_.

"I'm sure the ones who built it would disagree, milady," a strange voice said next to me on the path. I whipped around in surprise and found a man standing next to me. Up ahead, movement had come to a halt, and I quickly realized with growing apprehension that we were surrounded.

"What are—" began Tuck angrily.

Guillaume cursed loudly, standing up in his saddle and drawing his sword. Noting that since he was the only armed member of our group, and since the men who stood in our way were all carrying weapons, we were at a disadvantage, I smiled at the man beside me disarmingly. At least, I severely hoped it was disarming, for I did not relish the idea of dying on the road two miles from my intended destination. "And you are?"

"You may call me Much, milady. An ironic title, I know, but we can't choose our names, I'm afraid. Ah, I see you travel in holy company," he said, looking past me, the tone of his voice changing, as though he was sharing an excellent joke. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Tuck shake his head slightly at this Much. Tuck knew him, I realized, and just as quickly, I knew who these men were. I turned back to Much, who, now that I got to look at him, would indeed have been no taller than me had we stood side by side.

"Well, Much, I trust we can settle this without any bloodshed," I said, glancing to the man with vivid red hair who stood next to Guillaume, looking entirely prepared to slit his throat if my steward moved. Guillaume, thankfully, had the intelligence not to do anything but hurl an insult or two at the general surrounding, all of whom seemed relatively impervious to the worst Guillaume had to say.

"Well, that all depends on you, milady," said Much amiably, leaning against my horse's flank and looking up at me in a purely friendly manner, "you see, we're in the business of relieving nobles of any extra gold and jewels they might have weighing them down, and we'd take it kindly if you'd give us a little something to weigh our pockets before you go on your way."

Next to me, Tuck sighed heavily, as in exasperation. Much glanced up at the sky, a smile fighting its way onto his lips. I pursed my lips, looking down at him. "I have your word that you'll allow my friends and me to pass in peace?"

"On my honor, milady," he said, apparently blithely aware of the irony of that statement. Guillaume, who had been straining his ears to hear, snorted loudly.

"You realize you'll have to let me off my horse to get at my money. A lady doesn't keep her purse on her, you know."

Much stepped back and made an elegant leg, bowing to indicate that I should dismount. It was awkward without the help I was accustomed to, but I managed it without completely embarrassing myself. I strode up to the cart, catching Mary's eye and smiling slightly to reassure her.

"Lady Marianne, this dishonors your father and your family," Guillaume growled, "you should not give in to these men."

Exasperation made me forget to modulate my tone, "You would rather all of us died? You are the only one armed, and as they are aiming several arrows at your head at this moment, I doubt it'll do much use to swing your sword. I for one think my father's wishes would be fulfilled more in keeping me alive than sacrificing my life for a few coins and jewels." I rummaged through my trunk, found the small purse of gold I had brought with me, and turned to the dangerous-looking young man who by the cart. "To whom should I give it?"

He jutted his jaw a bit, but eventually said, "Hand it to Alan," jerking his head to indicate I should turn around.

I tried not to turn around too fast, but the need to look into the face of the man I was helping Elizabeth marry made me hastier than I would have liked. I saw a boy not much older than Elizabeth, with dreamy, watchful eyes and a kind mouth. As he acknowledged me with a bow, I decided I liked him. The red haired man snorted quietly at the respectful gesture, but I paid him no attention. I held out the purse to Alan, saying, "Take it. It is yours now."

Alan reached out for it, but was interrupted by Much, who still stood next to my horse. "No need. We'll take our toll from another, one who's not so obliging as you, lady, for kindness like yours should be rewarded, not taxed." I almost rolled my eyes at his flowery language, but managed to keep my countenance.

And in a flash, the red haired man had reached up to Guillaume and cut off his fat purse and thrown it to Much, who caught it with a smile. Pusillanime let forth a stream of curses that made my blood curdle, but the men were drifting off as quickly and quietly as they had come. I threw another glance at Tuck, who was looking down at his saddle again, this time with an intense concentration, the muscles in his jaw working furiously. I walked quietly back to my horse, telling myself that there would need to be a very different kind of conversation between Tuck and I very soon.

We rode on, Pusillanime clenching and unclenching his fists and promising vengeance, and Mary staring back in the direction the outlaws had gone, a small frown creasing her brow.

* * *

"My lords, my ladies, may I present Lady Marianne de Quesnel, newly arrived from Poitiers." The introduction was gallant, though the man who was gesturing toward me looked thoroughly bored. Prince John reclined against the back of his high wooden chair, looking lazily about him as if he'd seen all of this before and it had failed to interest him then.

I thought I could understand him. I curtseyed to the general gathering, taking my place at the Prince's left. It surprised me to hold such a high position, but I suspected, noting John's extreme ennui, that he wanted someone new to sit next to him.

How I would disappoint him, then, I thought, as I was going to do my best to be as vapid as possible. Neither the Guillaume nor anyone would suspect a thing of me; Elizabeth's future and my life depended on it.

The dinner fell into the familiar patterns, and I found myself desiring, as I had when I was younger, to do something spontaneous and odd to make things go differently for once. Surprised, I fought down the urge and then let it go, nodding graciously to all the lords and ladies I was introduced to, doing my best not to look too intelligent or too energetic. Everyone had to be disinterested in me for it to work. Elizabeth and her father and fiancé sat toward the back, and I greeted them with smiles and a few words of recognition, but I made no move to acknowledge any special connection between us, and neither did they. No love lost for us, I suspected, and I cursed my ill luck at not having had the foresight to pretend to be just as Guillaume would have had me be, for it would be harder to get them to believe I was entirely without spark or intelligence. If I had just…

"And this is Rafe Murdach," I turned my attention to a middle-aged, trim man indicated. "But he prefers to be called Sheriff, isn't that right, Rafe?" The Prince's voice was a shade warmer when addressing this man, I noticed. Something else to pay close attention to. As Sheriff, this Murdach would be deeply concerned in Robin Hood's concerns. As friend of the Prince's, that power would be even greater. I would need to reckon him into my plans.

I nodded to the Sheriff dutifully, and as his gaze swept over me, I felt him immediately dismiss me, just as Tuck had. Well, I was not marvelously attractive, and I was doing my best to be uninteresting and slow. It was exactly what I wanted to have happen, I told myself as I fought my indignation down. _Stop being stupid. You were ignored in Poitiers, too, remember?_

"And this," Prince John said, gesturing to the man on his right, in the position that bespoke a position of honor, "is Sir Guy of Guisborne, newly of Locksley, unless I am very much mistaken, Sheriff?"

The Sheriff answered in the affirmative as I regarded Guisborne. He was a powerful man, a full head taller than me, with a chest like a barrel. He had unfashionably tanned skin, dark brown hair cut ruthlessly short, and hazel eyes set close together beneath one continuous eye brow. He did not look like someone prone to talking much in any language, and the second he looked at me, I felt as if he were someone I would not enjoy getting close to. He regarded me in a very different way than the Sheriff had, and I averted my eyes modestly before he could divine anything from them. Whatever else could be said for him, I thought, he was not flippant in his judgment of other people. _Another one to watch out for, Marianne. And they both look as if they could cause you an extreme amount of pain. And then there's Greasby…_ For a moment, the enormity of what I was attempting to do overwhelmed me, and I ate mechanically, my heart pounding. I had to let this go, too, I knew it, but fear seemed to be much harder to deal with than anything else had been.

But when the conversation turned to Robin Hood, my attention finally wavered from my terror. Across the room, I saw Elizabeth straighten. I continued to drink my wine, doing my best to look only mildly interested in the topic.

"—the father, Robert, was a traitor as well. He was given the justice he deserved. This was before the boy, you know," the Sheriff waved vaguely, as if he had been over this multiple times and nobody else needed to hear it again, "And if the boy had taken his estates without complaint, there would have been no trouble. But he objected, and tried to organize some sort of rebellion—this was one or two years ago now—and was captured by Sir Guy. There was a great deal of fuss over him, popular you see, and in the end we thought it best he be sold into serfdom far away where no one would know of him. But then he and his men escaped, and ran to the forest, where they've been attracting fellow scum ever since. But it's only been recently that they've become as problematic as they have. Before, you see they stole mainly for their own survival. But now that they've been giving the majority of what they take to the poor, they're untouchable. No one will give them up, regardless of their lawlessness."

"So what you're saying," said Beauforest gruffly, "is that there is little to be done about these brigands." I was shocked; there are strict rules in the Norman court of who may talk to whom, but apparently things were less strict here, and no one even batted an eyelash.

"No," said Guisborne, much in the way one speaks to someone who is irreversibly dim, "what he is saying is that we need to be clever. We cannot punish every peasant in the area; we need them. We can't let him continue to break the law. What we can do is wait for him to make a mistake, and in the meantime be as clever as he is. Soon enough, we will catch him. Until then, be careful with your purses." There was a smattering of laughter. Prince John gestured to me, and I started. I had hoped that he would have forgotten me by now, as I had said nothing at all interesting during the entire course of the meal.

"I understand that Lady Marianne had a run-in with a bunch of them earlier today. Quite robbed her steward blind, poor man." Prince John sounded not in the least sorry, and I fought the urge to shoot a glance at Guillaume, who sat in the back, downing glass after glass of wine. "What did you think of them, my dear?"

Suddenly, the whole room's attention was trained on me, and I felt quite embarrassed. Never had I been called upon to speak in front of this many people before. _This is good,_ I tried to tell myself, _it makes you more convincing._ I swallowed, and then smiled emptily at the Prince. "Is that who they were? They did not seem at all impressive to me. I had heard that Robin Hood's men were twice the height of normal men, but they all seemed rather harmless to me. If it wasn't for their arrows trained on my steward's head, I should have disregarded them."

The Sheriff stiffened, and shot a glance of intense dislike at me. "I can assure you, milady, you were in a great deal of danger. Those so-called 'harmless' men have been the cause of much destruction hereabouts. But you needn't worry, we have them under control." He sounded as if I was last person he was worried about.

"Oh I see," I said innocently, returning to my food, now relishing the distaste the Sheriff had for me.

It would come in handy very soon.

Tuck sounded amazed, as if I had told him the trees in the Sherwood Forest had all gotten up and danced a jig. "You want me to help you put you, the lady Elizabeth, and myself into grievous danger? Are you out of your mind?"

"Perhaps I am," I said, peering through the screening, "Elizabeth says she wishes to marry this man, this peasant minstrel Alan. But I have no idea if it's the right thing to do, because I feel she may not be so love struck when she is mucking about after her hogs. It is not the life she's accustomed to, and I'm afraid she will regret what she risked her life to accomplish."

"Alan? Alan-a-Dale?" he sounded even more astounded.

"She said his name is Alan, and he is a musician in league with Robin Hood—"

"Yes, that's him—"

"And that's another thing, if he's an outlaw—"

"I can't believe _she's _his lady-love! Well, I suppose it makes sense, and he never _did_ tell me her name—"

"I knew it!" I chimed, then lowered my voice. "I _knew _you were at least sympathetic to Robin Hood! That robbery gave you away, though I doubt anyone but I noticed." I smiled as he groaned through the screen.

"That can't have been Robin's idea. He's very much against getting anyone killed."

"Funny, from what I hear, he kills Normans right and left," I said, recalling what the Sheriff and Guisborne had told the Prince over dinner. "Though I imagine that's the sort of thing they would say to make a villain of him to people like Elizabeth, who might sympathize."

"You still wish to help her?" He asked, now cautious.

"I'm not sure. I wish her to be happy, and I wish to see at least one Norman girl defy her father, but I'm worried she may not like what she's worked so hard to get."

"But you _did _promise to help her." The simplicity of the statement silenced any retort I might have had. "You gave your word that you would help her. It is not for you to decide now what should be done, it is for her to ask and for you to comply. That is the manner of a promise. It is her life she's dealing with, though you two are playing freely with all our necks, and any mistake she makes must be hers to make, not yours. All you can do is honor your word."

I sighed, acknowledging my defeat.

"Lady Marian?"

"Yes?"

"I do appreciate your coming to me with this moral dilemma, but do you think that next time, you could maybe not drag me four days to do it."

I laughed softly at this. "Well, Friar, it was not actually my idea to take you. Guillaume wished me to continue my soul-cleansing, and since I needed you anyway, I thought it a marvelous idea."

He grumbled something under his breath about "Normans," and I laughed again fondly. I found I had grown to like him over the course of the past months, and I was glad now to know we were working for the same goal. Maybe in time he would stop hating me. I rose from my kneeling position and walked quietly and unobtrusively back to my room, closing the door softly behind me.

Despite what Tuck had said about Hood, all I could think was, _he had better be as good as he is cracked up to be, or we are all in severe trouble. _

I would find out soon enough, I supposed.


	5. Chapter Four

The next few days were a game of waiting. I smiled at the right people, said the right words when I was called upon to speak, and otherwise remained quiet and unobtrusive. I needed to convince Beauforest that I was harmless, that my impertinence at my manor had been the product of my ignorance and innocence. I needed to de-barb a month-old sting.

As it turned out, he was not the biggest problem. Inclined as he was to disregard anyone beside himself, he was only too willing to write me off as a foolish young girl not clever enough to be married even when her appearance and fortune weren't up to snuff. No, my biggest challenge, it seemed, would be Guy of Guisborne.

He had been watching me since our introduction. At times, when we waited on the prince, and at dinner, I could feel his eyes on me, and I did everything I could to seem completely unaware of his attention, but I doubted he was fooled. He seemed much cleverer than he looked, unfortunately, and I found myself becoming more and more vapid, more and more idiotic, whenever he was looking at me, hoping he'd decide I was really what I pretended to be and move on.

The Prince was disappointed, I could see. He had been hoping for something to break the monotony of the daily dance of "milords" and "your Highnesses," and I was failing abysmally. I could almost feel sorry for him, but then I remembered his absolute incompetence as a ruler in Ireland, and the general hatred for him, even in London, even here, and I found I could not take pity on him. John Lackland was not to be pitied, for to me he was to be the enemy.

I waited for Hood to contact me. His men had made the first step, I knew, in assessing my character. It needed to happen soon, I thought, as Elizabeth's marriage approached. Impatience made me angry, and I would have snapped at people, had I had someone to snap at. As it was, Tuck became frustrated with my moodiness.

"What are you getting angry about?" he asked me on one occasion, when I had made a particularly bitter comment. "You get to change things for Elizabeth, but you can't control everything and you know it. You're doing what has to be done, so stop complaining." If anything, that only made my mood worse. I began to think that Robin Hood would never show, that he would let Elizabeth marry Greasby because to do otherwise would be too much trouble, that he was not the man he was thought to be.

But on the fourth day, Tuck knelt down in the confessional, and whispered, "He's coming. Tonight."

That was all I would get, it seemed. I asked for a meeting, Robin Hood decided when and where. I was annoyed, but I was glad to be doing something other than simpering to the Prince and his followers.

That night, I descended the stairs and entered the Great Hall, where yet another banquet was being served to the gathered lords and ladies.

Contrary to the beliefs of later times, court banquets were not places of chivalry and manners. Banquets such as these grew very raucous very fast, as the men downed mead and the ladies grew more hysterical from the attention of drunkards and the heat of the fires. Music, hardly ever really listened to, added an extra depth to the general cacophony.

But here, the announcer cried out my name into complete silence.

I could feel the tension in the room, and, praying my suspicions were wrong, I curtseyed politely and made my way to the dais at the front, on which Prince John sat, and empty seat on his left for me.

"Ahh, Lady Marianne!" John said beatifically, breaking the silence as a servant pulled out my chair for me and bade me sit. He was warmer to me now than he had been all week, and that, if nothing else had done before, told me all I needed to know. His eyes flickered back to a table on the lower level, and I dared not follow his them for fear of seeing the man I knew to be sitting there. Instead, I glanced at Elizabeth across the room, and saw Greasby's hand on her wrist, tightened painfully against her bare skin. She herself had her lips calmly pressed together, and looked merely vaguely interested in the proceedings.

_Good girl._

"Do you know who this young wretch is?" John said, pointing his finger rudely at a man in the crowd. Now I _had _to look, however much I didn't wish to. I turned my head, and looked at the man in question, the man I had hoped with all my heart would not be sitting just there, relaxed, with his hands folded just so.

He was short. Well, not _short_, for I could see that he was taller than I, but he was not of a grand stature like Guisborne or Greasby. After all I had heard of his height, I had imagined him to be as tall as an elm tree and just as strong. His skin was not a ruddy brown as I had imagined it, instead it was pale, as of course it should be, I realized, since he lived in a forest. The eyes that I had dreamed of, blue and merrily twinkling, were nonexistent. Instead, he had hard, gray eyes with long lashes, which were now regarding me with cool calculation. Only his hair color was consistent with my imagination; a mop of dark brown that fell over his forehead and curled at the back, too short for fashion and too wild for society. Though handsome and muscular, he was not the god I had imagined. It disturbed be to think it, but if anyone, Hood reminded me of Guisborne. They had the same measuring gaze, and I could tell that this man in front of me would not come to an immediate conclusion about anyone. This would work to my advantage, certainly, but how could I convince Hood of my trustworthiness while assuring Guisborne of my complete lack of intelligence?

"No, my lord, I am afraid I do not," I tried to make this sound like a grievous mistake of my own. The man in front of me narrowed his sharp eyes a touch, measuring me more exactly than he had before.

"This, my dear cousin, is the man they call Robin i' th' Hood," he sat, back straight, toying with his goblet. On his other side, Guy of Guisborne was glaring daggers at Hood, and I realized that had I not entered when I had, these proceedings could well have devolved into bloodshed, courtly banquet or no. "Or do they still call you Robin of Locksley?"

There was a pause as the two men looked at each other coolly.

"Robin Hood?" I queried, crinkling my brow, "surely you have not heard, Highness, but Robin Hood is as tall as a giant, with feet like boats and a gaze that turns Normans into stone?" I turned up my mouth on the last part, hoping to make the Prince laugh. Instead, he merely quirked up his own mouth, took a swig from his wine, and retuned his gaze back to Locksley.

"Hood, may I present to you the Lady Marianne, daughter of Lord Arnaud de Quesnel, newly arrived from France," he gestured to me, but there was nothing of the laze which he had displayed in previous introductions. Locksley and I nodded our heads at each other.

"My lord," I said respectfully, for for all his reputation, I could see he was well born. There was an immediate recoil about the room, and even Locksley himself looked taken aback.

"My dear, you are mistaken," said John, his voice and eyes as cold as ice, "he has no lordship."

"But Sire, I thought that he is Robin of Locksley?" I could feel the Sheriff's impatience and anger radiating from him, and I smiled internally. If he hadn't hated me before, he most definitely despised me now.

"No, he _was _of Locksley, my dear, but no longer. Were you not paying attention when we told the tale four days ago?" He, too, it seemed, was annoyed with me. Good.

I giggled a little, then looked modestly down at my plate, "I'm not usually interested in outlaws, Highness, forgive me, I should have paid more attention." I flinched inwardly, expecting Guisborne to pay attention to this rather trite statement. But he was focused on Hood, and I thought that if his gaze had physical force, Hood would be dead by now.

"Well, my dear," said the Prince almost casually, "Guisborne is now master of his lands. Isn't that right, Sir Guy?" He directed this to Guy, but did not take his eyes off of Hood.

Nor did I. I marveled at how calm he seemed. Any other man would have grown tighter around the jaw, would have clenched and unclenched his hands, toyed with his knife. Locksley did none of these things. He remained impassive, calmly eyeing the Prince and Guisborne, saying nothing.

"Is it jealousy, then Master Hood, that brought you here?" I asked directly, furrowing my brow.

Hood tore his gaze away from John and locked eyes with me. "I felt I owed the Prince a visit, Lady Marian. He has had his men searching for me, and I thought I might as well give them a hint," he said this without a trace of irony, but under different circumstances I felt that I would have laughed. His voice was quiet but deep, and for a moment I found I didn't mind that he had mispronounced my name.

I realized almost too late that if I let myself, I could have become deeply affected by him. I could see he was handsome, and I knew he was clever, and presumably he cared about the lives of his friends and his countrymen. If I let myself, I might even…

_Don't go all dozy, you fool, now is not the time to play favorites. Do you want Elizabeth to marry Greasby? No? Then stop dreaming, and pay attention._

"How _did _you get in here, Hood?" Prince John was asking, though from a glance at him I could see he already knew the answer.

"Your guardsmen are poorly trained, your Highness," said Locksley, and again he was without any hint of sarcasm, and yet they seemed disrespectful in the highest degree, "they were no match for my men." I resisted the urge to shiver at the thought of all the now-familiar guardsmen lying dead in a heap somewhere.

"Murderer!" growled Sir Guy, rising from his chair, reaching for his sword. Hood, however, remained seated, merely raising his eyebrows at Guisborne's angry red face and shaking hands.

"Perhaps, Sir Guy, but I, at least, take my targets quickly and cleanly. We differ in that way, I think."

"Cur!" Guy yelled, looking so angry I thought his square head would explode.

"Oh please," I begged, my voice shrill, "the two of you are enemies, I know, but must you really fight here, where there are delicate ladies present? Sirs, in the name of chivalry, I ask you to put up your swords."

Since only Guy had drawn his sword, it was now in his power to either withdraw and remain courteous or be the churl and advance. I was relieved when he sat down, panting heavily, while Hood regarded him coolly once more.

"Sirs, the lady Marianne is right," Prince John said, however unwillingly, "and while I may wish to see this blackguard culled like cattle, Sir Guy, I fear now they outnumber us, for," he directed to Hood, "no doubt you have your men here as well? You weren't fool enough to come alone?"

Hood inclined his head cordially, "Most discerning, Highness."

Guisborne growled something under his breath, and the Prince, now impatient with the situation, motioned for more wine to be poured. Locksley's eyes followed Guy as he drained his goblet and held it out for more, and I could barely perceive a small smile cross his face as Guisborne buried his face in it a second time.

Cursing my own stupidity, I realized that he must have something planned to make it possible for the two of us to talk confidentially in a room full of hostile Norman gentry. To make sure my suspicions were correct, I turned Locksley's attention back to me.

"Master Hood, it seems you have upset Sir Guisborne," I said, running my fingers lightly over the lip of my goblet, "he is a mighty fighter I have heard. What will you do if he challenges you?" Locksley's eyes followed my fingers and he casually set his own goblet down, a clear message that I should keep mine firmly on the table.

"I prefer to take one moment at a time, Lady Marian. Speaking of which," he said, rising to his feet for the first time in one graceful movement, causing the men around him to place their hands on their sword hilts, "I propose this toast," he regained hold of his goblet, holding it up for all to see, "to this moment in which I receive the fine hospitality of the Prince. Your Highness, to your health and good fortune, may you always keep track of them."

It would be rude beyond belief to refuse to drink in the Prince's honor, and so the men stood and drank, and the ladies sat by and sipped, and soon the party grew less connected, noisier, conversations grew slurred, and finally the entire room leaned over one another in slumber. The servants had disappeared, and there was again a deadly calm in the hall.

I stood quickly, shaking, barely able to control my anger. I must have looked murderous as well, for Hood put a finger to his lips and pointed to the door. We both exited, walking past the limp forms of Elizabeth and Greasby on the way out. As soon as we were out, I turned on Hood.

"What is this to you, Hood? Some sort of game? I cannot believe you would have acted this way if you'd been serious about helping us."

"Of course I'm serious," said Hood, his brow wrinkled. "Do you think I walk into Nottingham Castle and challenge the Prince for fun? I knew the risks, thank you, and I considered them when I came here."

"Well you can't have thought too hard about them! You put yourself, and me, and worst of all, Elizabeth, in huge danger. Not to mention all of your men," I said, as some familiar faces joined us in the hall. "There was no other way to do this, besides trying to prove your power to the Sheriff and Guisborne? I know you hate him, but—"

"No, you don't know," Hood said curtly, "and it wasn't about Guisborne. The Sheriff needed a reminder of his own weakness, and with his attention pulled to me, he won't think to look for trouble close to home."

"He was also talking a few nights ago about sitting back and waiting for you to make a mistake. He thinks you're getting too arrogant. Don't you see? If he'd been a little more prepared, this might have ended very differently. You can't go walking in anywhere and expect to come out alive just because you're a living legend!"

""Lady Marian," said Much from behind Hood, "you have to understand that this wasn't some cheap trick to amuse ourselves. We take living very seriously, I can assure you. There were other reasons behind this plan."

"Well forgive me for not fainting in wonder at your feet," I snapped, the anger feeling good under my skin. It had been a long time since I had spoken thus. "I care only for Elizabeth, and for getting her free of Greasby. Now the guards at any function will be doubled to make sure you and your men can't get in, and you'll have been the reason we're all in danger. I can't imagine you'd think that walking straight up to the Sheriff and practically giving yourselves up was a better idea than being careful. You were reckless, and if this fails, it will be your fault."

"We've gotten past the guards before," said a huge man at the very edge of the light.

"Congratulations. That hardly means you'll succeed the next time, does it?"

"Lady Marian," said Robin, and for the first time I could hear anger in his voice. "You cannot judge our actions if you don't understand everything we've done here. And I could not be sure of you, until I had talked to you. This had to happen for many reasons, not all of them concerned with you."

"Well all of those reasons do concern me when they risk the life of my friend. Don't patronize me. I you want to tell me all the grand things you've done tonight, then please do, but don't expect me to accept that you've done something wonderful when the vast majority of your actions tonight have been foolish and reckless, and don't reference your brilliance if you don't intend to share it with me."

"I wasn't patronizing you," Hood returned heatedly, "I was explaining as best I can that you have misjudged the situation. And you're wrong about my motives. I have every intention of keeping Elizabeth safe. She's one of our own, and she and Alan are our good friends. We've been planning this for months, long before you ever came here."

I was shocked to silence. My anger had left me shaking and close to weeping at how near to death we might have come. I blinked back my frustrated tears for a moment, and when I spoke at last, my voice was under firm control to keep it from quavering. "Then what was all this about? You are playing with me?"

Hood shook his head, and put out his hands to steady me. His expression was kinder, and the grip on my shoulders was firm but gentle.

"Lady Marian, tonight you have given me a gift. You have shown me that there is someone within Prince John's circle whom we can trust. That will only make us stronger. I assure you, no harm will come to Elizabeth. You are brave to stand against the Sheriff and Greasby. Thank you." He said this gravely, his tone did not sound earnest or dreadfully sincere, but I knew all the same that he was telling the truth. I felt it again, that feeling that I could grow to like this man, if I allowed myself to do it. When I had steadied, he released me, and stepped back, his men leaving quietly.

"Now we must go. When the time comes for you to know the plan, I promise you will hear of it." And with that, he turned nimbly and vanished with his men into the shadows.

Shaken, silent, I returned to my place at the high table. I seized my goblet, turning to the Prince's figure, and raised it in a silent toast. Then I downed all the drugged wine, sat down, and waited for sleep to overtake me.


	6. Chapter Five

When I awoke, I was in no mood to make excuses for Hood. My head pounding from whatever had been slipped into the wine, I stomped about my room, throwing whatever got in my way. I was angry at Hood, at his men, at Tuck, at anyone and everyone I could think of. I locked myself in my room all morning, trying to focus on something, anything, embroidery, prayer, that would take my mind off Hood and his, in my mind, extreme stupidity. Nothing helped, and by the time I was supposed to go to my daily confession with Tuck, I was seething.

"You're in a temper," said Tuck, sounding no better himself.

"That 'good planner' you promised me put us all in very real danger. He exposed himself to the people who want him dead when they have been planning for such a misstep. He should know better! They should all have known better."

Tuck sighed heavily. "I agree," had I been less angry, I would have noted that this was the first time we had truly agreed on anything. "Robin is usually more level-headed. I thought he would be more careful than this, especially since the Sheriff doubled the price on his head. He must have thought it absolutely necessary to do it." It was a feeble excuse, and I told him so.

"I don't care how level-headed he usually is, he comported himself very badly. He could have been killed, he could have given me away, he could have betrayed Elizabeth. Anything could have happened. If he had other business in the castle, I severely doubt he has never infiltrated this place before without detection. He could have done it on any other day. I'm surprised at how deeply you trust this man Tuck, seeing as his actions up until now have exhibited thoughtlessness bordering on incompetence."

"That is hardly fair," Tuck snapped, insulted. "You cannot judge his prowess based on one action, however badly planned it was. He may have made a mistake, but that does not mean he is incompetent. You judge him too quickly."

"I reserve the right to judge him however I wish. He seriously endangered everything I am working to bring about, and could have gotten himself killed in the process, and then where would we be? I can hardly imagine that he has been planning this business for months if _that's_ the best he could come up with. It's like something from traveling players! Drugs in the wine, standing face-to-face with the Sheriff and challenging him in his own house, all that. It's ridiculously ill-planned."

"What do you want to do, Lady Marian?" Tuck said impatiently. "I have agreed that this was not well-done, and that Robin acted heedlessly. But what are you going to do with that? Are you going to refuse his help and try to do this on your own? You know how far you'd get with that. And the goal here is not to get angry, but to help your friend. We may be angry with Robin, but we can't lose sight of that goal."

"If he'd just—" I began.

"It doesn't matter what he did. What matters now is what you can do. You can work with him or not. You know which method with succeed and which one will not. Those are the choices we are faced with. We have no time for anger."

Properly chastised, I received my penance and left. But I still felt the twinges of bitter resentment. Hood would have to redeem himself mightily for this for me to trust him again.

"Lady Marian?" a voice said behind me. I jumped, biting back a squeal, whirling around. The Sheriff of Nottingham stood on my left, dressed in plain riding clothes. I looked around me: without thinking, I had walked straight into the common area just inside the castle walls. One wider road ran up to the castle itself, the road I had been walking down. Today was apparently market day; there were stalls along a side street, and people were walking among them with baskets. I took stock of my location, then turned a fleeting, sheepish smile to the Sheriff.

"What are you doing out here without a chaperone?" His brow knit together, and he looked stern and imposing. He was so much taller than me I had to crane my neck to look up at him.

The conversation had not gotten off to a good start. I flushed with embarrassment, babbling, "I'm sorry, Sheriff, I know I shouldn't be here, but I wanted to see what it was like out here. I've only ridden through here before, and I've never been to a market day." No good trying to tell him I was lost in thought. Any mention of thinking at all would probably be a bad idea.

"You could not have asked a maid to come down here with you?" he was impatient with me again, and I remembered how I had goaded him on several occasions. He had no reason to like me. Hopefully that would mean he took my word for my own stupidity. I looked uncomfortable, as if I had never considered asking Mary to come with me, and suddenly realized that I should have.

"Come," said the Sheriff, holding out his arm, "I'll escort you back. Wouldn't want to lose you, now would we?" I let him lead me away, noting as I laid my hand on his arm the sheer thickness of the muscles of his forearm. His clothes belied his strength, for for all he was tall, he seemed positively lanky compared to the like of Guisborne and Greasby. But he was strong, very strong, and I felt my heart quail at the thought of challenging his authority.

We were silent as we walked toward the castle. I cast my eyes down, but took note of the layout of this area, and felt the flickers of concern as I saw the people walking through town, looking far too thin, their clothes hanging from them. The children were often wraith-like and old-looking. Now I understood why I was seen to be coddling my peasants: compared to these people, mine lived like kings.

I averted my eyes. High taxes made it impossible for these people to buy what they could not grow themselves. It was the same high tax that Robin Hood and his men were fighting against, a tax no doubt imposed by the king's activities in the Holy Land, and his gifts to Pope Gregory, as a result, the people of England were finding it very hard to make or buy what they need. And people in Normandy would be taxed as well. But I had never seen it. I had never looked. It was all very well to blame Prince John for the troubles of England, but as much as he wanted it, he had no real power here, not where it mattered. It was Richard, and under his orders, the justiciar, William Langchamp, who enacted the taxes. And nobles like me who lived off them. I felt a twinge of respect for my father, who could have raised land taxes to fill his coffers, but did not. I needed to do more than I was doing. I needed to act, to change the lives of those who were suffering, to help. I knew that I could not do it alone, and for once I could not let go of that frustration; it clung to me, to my hair, to my skin. I knew it would not leave now that I had found it.

And I knew, as the Sheriff left me at the front doors to the Great Hall, that I had no choice but to join with Robin Hood, for despite all that Tuck had said, I had still been entertaining going it alone in my quest to save Elizabeth. But I needed to work with Hood, for for all his mistakes, he was heading the battle I wanted to fight now.

So I would need to work with him. Trust would be out of the question, but cooperation…surely I could handle that.

I would have to, or we would all be in very real trouble.


	7. Chapter Six

"Marian! Wake up! Lady Marian!" My eyes snapped open. The room was dark; my candle had burned out. There was someone, a man, a man's hand on my shoulder, and he was shaking me, calling out in a voice I recognized.

Robin Hood had returned.

"You _have_ gone mad. Coming here once was not enough, now you risk your life again? What are you playing at?" If I had been able to see him, I would not have been able to retrain myself from strangling him.

"I wasn't seen. I thought what worried you was not so much my presence in the castle as it was the public knowledge of my presence in the castle." He was kneeling down, I thought, as his voice came from lower down to my left.

"You could, perhaps, give me notice of when you're going to stop by on these visits so I don't scream when a stranger comes into my bedroom in the middle of the night. That would be best, I think." There was no mistaking my tone, for all he couldn't see my face.

"Indeed. Sending you secret messages in the middle of the day when you are watched as closely as you are would not seem in the least bit suspicious." His tone was no less cutting than my own. "You're right again, it seems."

"It's a gift that I have," I said. "What possessed you to come back here, anyway? I had thought you would give it a few more days to settle down before you came back to the Sheriff's territory."

"And that's what the Sheriff thinks as well. Which is why he's him and I'm me. As to what brought me here, Tuck gave me a stern talking to today. He agrees with you about what happened last night."

"Yes, I know. I spoke to him this morning. You were inside the castle walls today?"

"I never left. I needed to see what kind of reaction the Sheriff would have so I could know how to defend ourselves."

"Tuck convinced you to come talk to me? That seems unlikely, since he agrees with me."

"What he—you—said made sense, though I know it had to be done. I came to apologize for the danger I put you in. For all that I needed to meet you, I should have given you warning. Had you not acted as skillfully as you did, you could have been killed, and then everything would be weakened. I want to assure you that I will take no more undue risks with your life and Elizabeth's. My own life I will continue to put in danger, but then I'm not in such a perilous position as you. I'm sorry."

I found the words were they were lodged in my chest.

"You saw me with the Sheriff today." It was not a question.

"I did. At least he is unconcerned with you. That's for the best. But be careful. He's not a fool, and if he starts to suspect you, you'll be in very real danger."

"And Guisborne—does he confide in the Sheriff much?"

Hood's voice went cold. "I doubt it. They may be on the same side of the law, but that doesn't mean they like each other. Why?" he sounded as if he already knew what I was going to say.

"Guisborne may have his doubts about me. I've caught him watching me several times, but I don't know if he's suspicious or not. He may just not have dismissed me as easily as the Sheriff did."

"No. He's not the sort." Hood's voice was icy, and I remembered what Prince John and the Sheriff had said about him. Guisborne lived on Locksley land in the Locksley manor, and Hood himself was deposed. And they had mentioned his father as well. I made a note to ask Tuck in the morning.

"Do you think I'm in trouble?" I asked, hoping that Hood would not get lost in his anger before we could finish our conversation.

"Undoubtedly. But no more than any of us are in. Don't give them any reason to watch you more closely. And don't assume the Sheriff is indifferent because you don't see him watching you. If I were you, I'd make no more unaccompanied trips into the market."

I felt the walls closing in around me. I had felt trapped when I thought only Guillaume was watching me. Now I had to continue to plan this with no less than three people who might be taking a great interest in my activities.

"Damn." I said softly.

"What?"

"What?"

"_Damn_?" Had he been any other man, he would have been chuckling. "I don't believe I expected to hear that kind of language from you. Where did you learn it?"

"I did talk to my peasants when I was at home. My hostler Martin was not very concerned with the purity of language." Too late, I realized that I was wasting time joking with him. He was in extreme danger here, for all his apparent ease. I couldn't afford to like him too much. "Can't we talk about something productive? Elizabeth, perhaps?"

"Yes, the next order of business," now I felt the edge of the bed creak as he sat down next to me, but not touching. _This is highly improper, Marianne. _

"And you said you have a plan, yes? Is that what you've come to tell me?"

"Yes. But what I'm going to tell you now is only the part you will be playing in this, not the complete plan. That way, if you are caught—"

I was outraged, "Do you honestly imagine that I would go to all this trouble to betray you? That I am a…an _espionne, _a spy, for the Prince?" Had there been an ounce of light in the room, I would have stood up and strode about the room angrily. As it was, I clenched my fists and waited for his answer, resisting the urge to feel where his face was and strike him a blow across the cheek.

"No, I doubt you would do anything of the sort," and he sounded soothing, in his own way, as if he knew how I had just been insulted and was attempting to get me to understand. "But it's very possible that something could go wrong. That's how it is, and if you do get caught, I don't want them to think that they have anything that needs extracting from you."

"Extracting?" I had no idea what he meant.

"Through torture, lady Marian." I sucked in a breath. He was right of course. If he told me no more than what I had to do, then I could anyone honestly that I knew nothing of the rest of the plan. But I could hardly believe that they would resort to torture, especially the torture of a Norman lady.

"Oh. I see."

We sat in silence for a few moments, and I controlled my breathing. _You knew this going to be difficult, Marianne. You should stop panicking at every new development._ It was easy in theory, but this was the most rebelling I'd ever done in my life, and I was unsure how to go about it. Hood was warning me, it was true, and I did appreciate knowing the danger before dashing headlong into the thick of things, but from the way my heart kept jumping, I thought I would be glad when all of this was over.

That is, if I was still alive when all this was over.

"Lady Marian?"

"You'd better tell me what it is you want from me. You shouldn't be here for too long, it's dangerous for you."

"Indeed," he said again, impassively. _Damn this man,_ I thought in frustration, _It would be easier to hold a conversation with a door. _

"Or perhaps you prefer it if we sit in the dark and do absolutely nothing while you are surrounded by your enemies?" I said, letting my anger show. I'd had enough of these games that weren't games.

"All right. But I want to make sure you're absolutely certain of your part in this. I don't think I can come here again to explain it to you, yes?"

I rolled my eyes pointlessly. "Yes."

He leaned closer, and, breath lifting the hairs from my neck, he began to speak, spinning his plan into the night.

* * *

Robin Hood confused me. He had left an hour after he woke me up, but not before he had made me repeat every detail of the plan back to him three times to be sure I understood it. It wasn't hard. My part in this, though Hood swore it was crucial, was very small. It bothered me that that bothered me. Owing to the fact that I had been near point of panic when Hood spoke of torture, I should have been glad that I was not more instrumental to the plan. But instead, I felt cheated, and foolish for feeling so.

But more than those feelings, Hood absolutely confused me. I had only seen his face once, and it had been a handsome one, to be sure, but nothing worth a third glance, in my opinion. I had never let myself become intrigued by a man before. There had really been no point, after all, as my father would have told me who I could marry and who I could not. Any feelings or desires would have been damaging.

But I felt myself fascinated by Hood. And it worried me. I could not afford to let that happen, for it could easily give me away. As long as I remained impassive, I knew I could manipulate a situation. But I had never had to lie about any particularly strong feelings. Something so far outside my comfort zone scared me.

I had always looked at people objectively, and many times I had seen their flaws more easily than their virtues. I looked at people the way my father looked at people, the way Norman nobility saw the world and its population, entirely based on what they could do for me. I had been taught to be careful, be cautious, to work everything quietly and discreetly to tweak things in my favor. I had been taught to be pious and virtuous. But with a strange man beside me, I had felt neither pious nor virtuous. I had not felt the need to be discreet or cautious.

I'd heard about this feeling before in Mass, and from nurses and whispering maids. It was lust. Hood's closeness to me had stirred something in me that I had never felt before.

Foolish, I thought. You've only seen the man once, met him twice, and you were livid at him for most of that. He may be intelligent, but this is no time to be an idiot.

But I couldn't help it. Hood, and his confidence in me, made me burn with embarrassment and glee. And it wasn't just that, it was the life that he led, that seemed so impossible to me, and yet so tantalizingly close. I wanted that as well.

I flushed with shame. I really would have something to confess to Tuck tomorrow, although it would make him mightily uncomfortable. I wasn't supposed to act like this. It was wrong, I thought, to think of, or imagine, the lines of a man's body, the muscles straining against the skin, the hair curling around his ears, the sharp brilliance of his eyes. It was wrong to think of him in this way, me, an unmarried woman who was devoted to embroidery and prayer.

I was seventeen years old. In two months, I would be eighteen. It was near unthinkable that I was unmarried, and if it went on for much longer, I would find myself settling into this kind of life. Perhaps it was all right, then, if I was never to marry, to think about a man I barely knew this way. Perhaps it was all right to imagine what could have passed between us, had circumstances been different, had the world been different, had we been married. It was the first real flight of imagination I'd had in all my adult life, and it had me clinging my pillow as I drifted off to sleep, terrified that if I let it go, I would feel more alone than ever.


	8. Chapter Seven

When I told Elizabeth the plan, she was shaking so much that I had to help her sit down on a bench. Tuck was silent behind me. We spoke in whispers, but it was shortly after the midday meal, and most of the inhabitants of the castle would be sleeping, anyway, and wouldn't think to come to a small side room in the church. I hoped.

"Are you saying I have to marry him?" Elizabeth said, looking at me incredulously. "But if I marry him, how can I marry—? You said you'd help me," she said, and now her eyes shone with accusatory tears, "You said you'd help me and you're just letting me marry him. Do promises mean nothing to you, Lady Marian? I thought—I thought we were—and all this time you have been plotting behind my back to…" she trailed off helplessly, staring up at the vaulted ceiling without really seeing it.

"If you don't trust me, you should at least trust Robin Hood, for this is his plan," I said, determined not to let her know how her words had stung me. "Alan is one of his band; Robin would be loathe to plot against you two. I did not lie to you when I promised I'd help."

"But then why do I have to marry Greasby?" She fired back. I looked at her for a moment, then knelt down next to her, so that I was below her eye level and could look up at her earnestly.

"You are not to be married in the church, but in the castle. I am sure the Prince himself will perform the ceremony, as he is the highest in rank. After that, there will be great festivities, a banquet, dancing, eating, drinking. There will me minstrels. Not Alan," I said as she opened her mouth, "he is too easily recognizable. There is so much excitement during this times that they will not notice, for a short time, that you are missing."

"Missing?" her eyes were locked onto mine. Her past anger was still making her eyes burn brightly, but she was listening now.

"Yes. You're to be taken to your chamber to prepare yourself." I did not say _for the wedding night_, but she knew what I meant, and shuddered all the same. I did not blame her. "Your ladies in waiting would usually do this, but you have only one ladies' maid, yes?"

"Ye-es," she said, her brow wrinkling a bit. "But I'm sure she can still dress me."

"Not on your wedding day. Something will happen—something not life-threatening," I added, noting her look of alarm. "Hood will not really harm her, but she will not be well. So, I will offer my services and my maid, who will help you escape." It was not that simple, but she needed to know there was a plan.

"So I am to disappear between the wedding and the—afterwards?" She asked, and I nodded in answer. "But that still leaves the problem that I will be married to him, and therefore cannot marry Alan." She was still so angry, still so ready to lash out in her confusion and fear. I glanced up at Tuck, who, after all, must know of this plan, asking him silently to elaborate. He caught my eye and would have sighed in his usual long-suffering manner had it not been for the delicacy of the present situation.

He said, "If a couple are wed outside the Church, they have a week in order for the marriage to be blessed by a priest. If it is not blessed, then it did not happen. The Church gives leeway for nobility, seeing as they fill the bishops' coffers with gold, especially during the times of Crusade, but their generosity is not inexhaustible. The noblemen have time to consummate the marriage, to—break in their new wives," this time I shuddered, "but a marriage not blessed by God is no legal marriage at all."

"So if I disappear after the ceremony…" Elizabeth started, beginning to understand.

"You will, in essence, be running from a marriage you have not had yet."

"But how will you explain my escape? They will certainly come looking for me. Greasby will guess where I am gone." She was afraid again, I saw. _And Greasby is a hunter, _I reminded myself. For a moment, I let myself share her fear.

"We cannot completely counteract the suspicions, I'm afraid," I said frankly, for this was the part Hood had elaborated on the most, being my part in all this, "they will know you've been taken, and they will guess by whom, but finding you will prove to be harder. And they'll have testimony from my maid and myself about who really took you."

Elizabeth looked at me as if I was crazy. "Who really took me? What does that mean?"

"It means Mary and I will swear that a man fitting no descriptions of any of Hood's men attacked us in your chambers and took you away. We will have the bruises to prove it," I said wryly, remembering how Hood and I had argued over this detail.

"But I need to have some marks on me!" I'd protested. "I can't just fall in a faint and pretend I've been hit on the head with something. They'll never believe it!"

"But what happens if he hits too hard?" Hood asked doggedly, "I don't want to run the risk of killing our contact in John's circle or getting her so angry at us she decides to stop helping us."

"Well then you'd best send the man you know you can trust with that sort of thing," I had shot back.

"Bruises?" Tuck and Elizabeth looked a bit shocked. I smiled and shook my head by way of reassuring them.

"We will be hurt, but we will also be the best witnesses. I may be a vapid Norman lady with little but sewing and flirting on her mind, but if I swear before everyone what I saw, it will convince some."

"And the others?" Tuck asked gruffly.

"As I said, there will be no denying suspicions will fall on Robin Hood. But while there is division, we can take advantage of the situation and get you to safety."

"So what _will _happen?" Elizabeth asked, more calmly now that I had outlined some of the plan.

"A man will come, I don't know who, to take you to the forest. He will be dressed as a minstrel. You will change into clothes Mary and I have for you, taking your gown with you, but leaving a scrap jammed into the door lintel, as if you had been dragged against your will. You will take a good deal of your jewelry as well, to make it look like a robbery."

"And then—?" Elizabeth said.

"And then you shall ride to Sherwood forest disguised as a peasant woman, and be reunited with your Alan." She smiled at this, a hesitant, tremulous smile that I had been expecting, but nonetheless tore at my heart. _Aren't you glad you can manipulate people, Marianne? Some women have a talent for embroidery, some for love, some for power, and you, you can make people do exactly what you want them to do. What luck you've got, for this power is sure to leave you the most alone. _

"And you?" She asked suddenly, turning back to me. "What of you?"

"What do you mean?" This, at least, I had not been expecting.

"What will happen to you once I am gone?"

I smiled a little, thinking how dear she had come to be in the past week. We had spent more time together, as I helped her finish her trousseau, and as we walked the castle grounds, followed closely by chaperones. I had admired her ability to love everything, to see the best in people. I coveted her easy, open nature when she felt comfortable, and I envied her deep and passionate love for Alan. Most of all, though, I thought with a twinge of guilt, I had enjoyed the way she respected and looked up to me, as though I were an older sister, and I felt the joy of her concern for me and the pain of losing something so precious to me. Then I shrugged a little, turning up a corner of my mouth with a trace of dry humor and said, "I doubt that Hood planned for my escape as well, my dear. And surely you see the danger if two Norman women disappear on the same day, a day that is only one woman's wedding day."

She nodded, concerned but understanding, and I felt that had it been possible, we could have been real friends. The thought warmed my heart for a second.

But it did not make me feel any better as she left the church.

"This is dangerous," Tuck said after a long period of silence between us.

"I actually thought it was rather impressively safe for something of this nature," I said not looking at him. I settled myself down in the pew that Elizabeth had just vacated, the heat her body had left doing nothing to penetrate the chill that surrounded me. "Hood's men are not exposed, do not even come into the open. Elizabeth escapes with the help of only those we trust, and rides out without an eye on her. Yes," I said, staring fixedly at the crucifix over the altar, "I thought this plan much better than the one before it."

"I meant, dangerous for you," said Tuck.

I nodded slowly. "I know."

"Lady Marian, surely you understand how great a risk you put yourself in if you stay behind. You, who helped Elizabeth prepare, you who gives false testimony about the attacker. All signs, all leads, all fingers will point to you! Do you realize what they can do to you?" He was angry now, and I looked up at him, smiling fondly. _Perhaps it is wise not to get too close, _that voice in my head suggested,_ then, if nobody cares about you, you can do what you like without fear of hurting or being hurt. Perhaps you should push him away now. After all, you already have a father, what do you need with another one? _But I resisted, instead looking directly at him.

"They can torture me, if they want to. They can kill me. And there's nothing I could do to stop them. Not if they found me guilty." Tuck hissed in surprise at my nonchalant tone. I resisted the urge to touch his arm reassuringly. "My life is not worth very much, Friar, surely you can see that. I will never marry, never be important or powerful, never be able to change things on the scale in which I would like to see them changed. When I am gone, no one will remember me. I doubt my own father values me. If I cannot risk my life for the one friend I have in this world, then what else am I good for? What else is anyone good for, if they cannot do that? I have spent my life alone, but I am not so selfish as some might think. I want her to be happy, even if it means I will be punished for it."

"And Robin was willing to risk your life? I cannot believe him so reckless." Tuck's voice held a deep censure, and again I smiled, though this time at my knees.

"He was willing to offer me the protection of Sherwood for as long as I thought necessary. I persuaded him that that would be too dangerous. As I told Elizabeth, one woman may disappear mysteriously, but two must have some sort of destination."

Again there was silence. Finally, Tuck sighed, and straightened. He did not speak, but walked to where a small tapestry adorned the wall, and gazed at it. Without turning, he said in a conversation tone, "Robin Hood is a remarkable man. He is proud, but strong enough to admit his mistakes, as he has done with you. He does not trust easily, but once he does, he is undyingly faithful. He speaks of you with only the highest respect. That he offered you a place in his home is not only surprising, it is astonishing, for usually it takes him much longer to gauge the measure of those he meets. You can be sure that if you ever need a place of protection, you will find it with him. And if what you told me this morning was true," I winced, remembering the painfully awkward confession I had given, "then I think he affected you in much the same way. Be careful, the pair of you." And with that, Tuck touched me on the shoulder softly, and walked down the aisle and out the door.

To my dismay, I found my heart pounding, close to tears. There had been more real affection in that one brief touch than my father had shown me my entire life. And Tuck had said Hood had spoken of me well. And Elizabeth valued me as a friend. In my foolish joy, I felt the urge to cry tickle to back of my eyes. Everything was changing, and I was so afraid. It is hard, after all, to be alone for seventeen years, and harder to still to realize that it does not have to be so.

For a moment, I allowed myself to dream of life in the Sherwood with Robin Hood and his men, with the freedom to come and go as I wished and say what I wished and marry whomever I wanted.

But, I am ashamed to say, the idea frightened me. I had lived without those freedoms for my entire life, and all my strength was wrapped up in using the rules of my society for my benefit. In Sherwood, I saw only the discovery of my weakness.

So I stood up, brushed myself off unnecessarily, and walked out the door and into the sunlight.


	9. Chapter Eight

Had she been marrying any other man, I might have cried when I saw Elizabeth in her full regalia. Her dress was full and soft, a delicate blue with an unusual, wandering embroidery pattern. Her hair was loose and golden, glowing in the spring sun that streamed down through the high windows. Had she planned on remaining a noble woman for the rest of her life, this would be the only time she would wear her hair down in public. The fact that she had shunned fashion and refused to pluck her hairline to achieve the coveted high forehead only added to her beauty. She was glorious, and her perfect face held no trace of nerves. She looked confident, fearless, and I admired her more than I had ever done before. She could be caught today, she could be killed, or followed, and everything could come to ruin, but she was unfazed. She was going to escape today, and she would see her Alan, and she would not let any shadow of a doubt ruin that thought.

She may have looked up to me as an older sister, but I wished I could be half the woman she was. I wanted desperately, at that moment, to go with her, and experience the same joy, but I knew I could not. Today was not my day, it was hers.

Had it been any other woman, I would have told how marvelous she looked, how much I wished her joy, how she would find happiness in her new venture.

But I could not say such things. One does not say such things before a false marriage.

Instead I said: "Are you ready?"

She looked at me and Mary, who stood just behind me. The three or four noblewomen, who were now so anxious to be helpful, stood back and cooed. Whether or not they approved of this marriage, and whether or not they wanted her fortune for their own, I could not tell. At least some things never changed. Now that they had seen her, though, they were highly conscious of the need to find a good seat to watch the festivities. They left excitedly, ready for another banquet, another marriage to gossip over and plot against.

I stepped toward her and fastened a golden crucifix about her neck. She looked up at me, and, her face blocked from the rest of the room, she smiled brilliantly.

"Yes."

Mary came up to me, looking elegant in dark blue. "I hope you know what you're doing," my newly appointed ladies maid murmured.

"I do, but your doubt is certainly appreciated at this moment, Mary, more than words can say."

"We should go," she said, nodding to me meaningfully. I knew she knew I had spoken out of my anxiety, and that she had taken no offense. I kissed Elizabeth on the cheek, and nodded for them to lead the way. She went, Mary directly behind her. Elizabeth's real ladies maid had been in bed with a crippling stomach ache for three days. I was sure she would recover soon.

As they continued to the Great Hall, I turned back into her room and began to quietly over turned her furniture and baubles, working quickly but thoroughly.

* * *

The wedding, when it happened, was slow, and tedious, and joyless. Greasby was well-dressed in his best doublet and hose, the audience was in its Sunday finery. The sound of horns blared as Elizabeth appeared, and pounded our ears with their pomposity as she continued toward where her betrothed and Prince John were standing. It was impossible to hear the whisperings and mutterings as the crowd saw her unfashionable hair, but I knew they were there. I looked at the people lining the walls, at the minstrels with their brightly colored doublets, and I tried to see if any stood out, tried to pinpoint the one I was trusting to lead Elizabeth to safety I could not see him, which I supposed was the point. So I remained quiet, kept my eyes on Elizabeth, and waited.

It took a long time. The Prince had obviously gained instruction from a priest about the right way to go about a wedding, and so the requisite two hours of Latin verses from the Bible before the vows themselves were spoken stretched on into eternity. I found myself nodding off on more than one occasion, only to be nudged awake by Mary, dressed finely in borrowed velvet and satin, sitting next to me in a row near the back. Her eyes were bright and alert, and I wondered what she was thinking at this moment. She watched the proceedings intently, and her jaw jutted forward determinedly. I turned to watch Elizabeth say her vows.

Finally, finally, the Prince pronounced the two man and wife, and the trumpets blared again, awaking those who had allowed themselves to doze off with a start. The onlookers arose, and the rows of chairs were cleared to make way for the banquet tables. I looked at Mary, and nodded, and we moved swiftly but not too swiftly to Elizabeth's side, smiling coyly and pretending to be excited at the joyous occasion. My mind was on Hood's man, however. Would he be trustworthy? Would be get her out?

I sent a small prayer skywards as we skipped up to her chamber. Hopefully it would be heard and respected. I had never asked anything for myself before, and perhaps God would take that into consideration while I broke the law and every social code England had. We reached her room, closing the door, still singing happily, and set to work immediately. He gown was taken off, replaced by one of Mary's that fit her ill and looked as if it had been dragged through several mud pits. I reminded myself to get Mary something better to wear now that she was my ladies maid. Elizabeth's long hair was tied up in a dirty cloth, her pale skin smudged. A bag was stuffed with a few of her more valuable and more useful belongings. We were almost ready when the door burst open.

I almost shrieked, but bit my tongue in time. Elizabeth and Mary were blissfully composed. The man we had been expecting strode into the room. I got a shock as I recognized the red-haired young man from our first encounter with Hood's men. What had been his name?

His eyes were hard, and for a moment, I had misgivings about him. But he was Hood's man, and it wasn't meanness in his face, but determination. His anger wasn't cruel. But I was still taken aback by the blazing in his eyes and the feral set of his face. Hood hadn't told me what his name was, and now I wished I could put a name with the face.

He was dressed as a minstrel, but he quickly divested himself of colorful clothing, stuffing them in a bag of his own. He now looked like any servant, but for his eyes. A hat pulled across his brow solved that. It all took less than a minute, but we all saw his scarred hands and the easy grace of his movements. Without even speaking, he had us all in thrall. Perhaps it was that he held all our fates in his hand, and that he was the one we were waiting for, but there was something magnetic about him that disturbed me. He turned to us.

"Are you ready?" he asked Elizabeth, a perfect echo of me three hours ago. His voice sounded as if he didn't use it very often, and it snapped at the corners, very much like his eyes. Elizabeth nodded breathlessly. Mary held out the bag with Elizabeth's things to him, and he accepted them wordlessly, nodding in thanks to her. Had I had time to notice things, I might have noticed how her breath had quickened since he had walked in, how her hands shook as she clasped them close to her, how she searched his face with her eyes. I might have noticed, but I didn't, and so I had no warning. He handed the bag to Elizabeth, who looked ready to run down the hall, poised for an escape that was so close, so close. But she stood still, knowing what was coming next, and dreading it as much as I was.

_You had to convince Hood that this was the best thing to do. You couldn't have just fallen down and pretended? _Of course I couldn't, and I knew it, but I didn't relish the idea of this man hitting me across the head.

I straightened my shoulders.

"You'd best do it now," I said. Without acknowledging he had heard me, the man's hand flashed out, armed with a dagger now, and clubbed Mary briskly over the head. I quelled the horror I felt as I watched her crumple to the ground, and Elizabeth gasped quietly. The man turned to me, and his other hand flashed, striking me hard across the cheek. I reeled from the blow, but before I could press my hand to my face, the dagger's hilt came down on my head, and darkness claimed me.


	10. Chapter Nine

A hand struck me viciously awake. My head throbbed sickeningly, and I hurt everywhere, but my first conscious thought was _I'm glad I'm not dead._

"Lady Marianne! Wake up!" It was the Sheriff, and by the sound of things, he was none too pleased. I pried my eyes open, wincing as the last rays of sunlight hit my eyes, and struggled to a sitting position. The aching in my head intensified, and I almost resolved to fight through it when I remembered who I was sitting next to. I had to keep up the game, even now, when all I wanted to do was close my eyes and go back to sleep.

So I pitched forward, cradling my head in my hands, and whimpering at the pain. It wasn't hard to do.

"What happened?" The Sheriff's voice cut through my whining, and I flinched a bit. "Lady Marianne, what happened?"

"I—don't know—" I said. Which was true, I supposed. I had no idea why he had struck me twice, for example, and after I had been knocked unconscious, I really had no knowledge of what had happened. I thanked Hood momentarily, because it would be harder to lie now that I was doubled over in pain.

'You don't know?" This was a second voice, gruffer, angrier. I recognized it as Beauforest's. I raised my head from my hands, eyes swimming in the pain, and saw a group of four men clustered around me from my position on the floor. The Sheriff knelt beside me, as of course he had struck me across the cheek. Beauforest and Greasby stood slightly behind him, fanned out, identical stances that bespoke rage and brute strength. Behind them all, over the tops of Greasby's left shoulder, I could see Guisborne, watching everything closely, but saying nothing.

That might have been the end right there. I think I would have given everything away with my eyes when I caught him watching me, but that was when I saw Mary still lying where she had fallen, and real panic surged in my throat, and I pulled myself over to her, hitting her face, calling her name, my voice rising in fear. He had hit her first, what if he'd done it too hard? What if—?

But her eyes fluttered, and she moaned, sounding very much like I felt. I breathed a sigh of relief, and as my face was bent down to hers, I conjured tears to my eyes, not hard as my head was hurting so. I sat back as she sat up, clutching her head much as I had. I wiped away the tears that now streamed down my face, and turned to the Sheriff.

"Did—did you catch him?"

"Catch whom?" The Sheriff's brows were knit together fiercely, his face dark. I stared off into space, as though I was thinking very hard to remember something.

"There was a man. Tall man. He jumped out as we were getting Elizabeth ready, I only saw him for a second. He hit Mary over the head, and when I tried to scream he gave me this." I pointed to my cheek where I could feel a large bruise throbbing. "and knocked me down, too." I looked around at the room, seeing the state it was in, the chairs knocked about, things scattered everywhere, covers torn. And I felt, for the first time, how empty it was.

"But where's Elizabeth?" I said, my voice quiet and high as a child's. There was a heavy silence, and my heart leapt, though my face remained panicked. "Where is she? Is she hurt?"

They stared down at me, and at their clenched fists, and said nothing.

"Sheriff," I said, and the words were tight with fear. "I think you'd better tell me what happened to my friend."

"She's gone," said Guisborne unexpectedly from the back. I had not heard him speak since the day Hood had sat with us at dinner. Now he was looking at me in a very different sort of way than he had before, but I didn't have time to qualify it, being too busy looking from the Sheriff to Elizabeth's father and Greasby.

"Gone?"

"Yes, gone. Beauforest wondered what took so long, and he came upon you when he opened the door. He sent word, we raised the alarm. But Elizabeth, it seems, has vanished without a trace. The Prince is ordering more men to search the area."

"She'll be found, won't she? Brought back safely?" The charged silence hung over the room, and I dared to hope that they knew they could not find her.

"Lady Marian," began Guisborne from the back, and again I was surprised at his voice, though now I supposed I should have been expecting it. I turned my tear-soaked face to him as he said, "Did the lady Elizabeth ever share any plans with you to run away from her marriage?" A growl escaped Beauforest, and Greasby, unnervingly quiet, simply clenched his jaw a little tighter. I was incredulous. Run away? Run away, sire? Surely you must be mistaken," I laughed a bit, breathily, as if the very idea was ridiculous. "Elizabeth was prepared to do her duty to her father and to her betrothed, I am sure of it. She would never have willingly run away from that, for all that she was nervous," I grew more serious, "she is a good daughter, sire. A good Norman girl." And I stared at my hands in my lap, blinking hard.

"Nervous?"

"Yes sir," I said, swallowing and bowing my head to Beauforest. "You must see how much is expected of we daughters to please our fathers. It is natural to be nervous, hoping to live up to your expectations."

_All right now, don't over do it. Hold back a bit, there's a girl._

"But I'm sure she would not have deserted her duty. We were—are, we are friends, she and I. Very good friends," I looked down at my hands, miserable, "she would have confided in me." More tears, some of them genuine, spilled down my face, and I let small sobs shake my body, pressing my head pitifully with my hands. By God, it hurt.

The Sheriff sighed, and helped me to my feet. Mary struggled to stand on her own, for I could not seem overly concerned for her. He lead me down the hallways to the Prince's chambers, where another questioning was waiting for us.

Beauforest and Greasby followed closely behind, and I almost walked more quickly, as I felt their violent rage pressing behind me.

_Be careful Marianne. Oh, please be careful. _

That night, I lay on my bed, eyes open and staring up at the canopy of my bed. I was so exhausted, I might have slept where I lay, but my heart was racing, and I could not stop myself from going over everything that had happened, over and over, hoping, praying that I had made no mistakes, that I had given nothing away.

Hood had been right: the first part of the meeting with the Prince had been rife with accusations against Robin Hood and his men, and threats for compensation. They seemed to forget, for a while, that Mary and I sat among them, wretched in our pain and nausea. Then the Prince directed a volley of questions at us, and I answered them as best I could, Mary nodding and agreeing with me as she should.

Hood had given me a specific list of things I should say about the mythic attacker, but I had already said I had seen him for a moment before he hit me, so I could not give a full description without arousing suspicion. I hoped it was enough to confuse them, for all of the qualities together did not resemble one of Hood's men in particular. In all other things, I was vague where it was necessary, weepy when pressed too far, and thoroughly no help. The most I did was to beg for my friend's safe return, and by the time we were allowed to leave, I thought I had thoroughly annoyed all the men so much with my whimpering that they were extremely glad to let me go.

It was close to night then, and I had sent Mary to bed and stumbled off on my own to find my own room. There, I pressed my head up against the cool stones, careful of the egg-sized lump the man had raised, and it did calm the ache a bit. Still, I thought I could not wait to fall asleep so I could escape, but now I lay awake, staring at the patch of blue that was my window, barely distinguished from the black of my room. I snuggled down farther underneath my blankets, enjoying the sensation of my body and shoulders being warmer than the air around me. I sighed in wonder of this simple pleasure, allowing my thoughts to turn finally to what I would do when I returned home to the Manor, of what the crops would be like this year, of how we would manage to pay the taxes. My mind seemed to skip over the quite possible disasters that could happen, reveling instead in the idyllic picture of what I wanted to happen, and I felt warmer with the thought of going home. I let my mind drift, and time drifted with it, and I felt a bit better.

t was only a light thud, but it startled me out of my reverie. I sat up, gazing at the patch that was the window, waiting for another sound. It came in the form of a small hushing noise to my left.

"You really do want to die, don't you?" I hissed. "After all the hard work I did to lead them astray, you come back here on the same day, doing what you'd _sworn_ to me you wouldn't do, and putting yourself in danger again by returning here. Is it your poor diet in the forest? Is that why you wish to die? Or maybe it's the cold? That is why we live in houses now. You should try that, it may help."

"You enjoy the sound of your own voice." He might have been amused, I thought, if could have seen his face.

"I do," I said, crossing my legs underneath my covers. _And you thought the _last _meeting was improper Marianne…What happened to your feminine modesty, for Lord's Sake?_ "But I'd rather hear yours telling me what actually happened."

"Ah, I thought you might," the bed creaked slightly as he settled himself down next to me. "And I wanted to make sure our new ally was still alive. How is your head?"

"It hurts," I said pointedly. "But that, I think, was the point. Your man—"

"—Will—"

"—Will, was not very merciful with us. But it did help our story, as I said it would—"

"—you were right on that—"

"—Thank you. And I told the story the best I could. I couldn't stop them from accusing you," I said apologetically, "but I told the story, and I cried a little, and pleaded with them to bring her back, and all in all I think that they were more than happy to see the last of me for today."

"Well done," there was a note of respect in his voice that I had not heard before. I felt myself begin to blush, but even here, in the dark, I forced myself to stop. It did no one any good to harbor impossible infatuations and ridiculous behavior.

"So what happened?"

"Well…" he trailed off for a moment, and we sat there in the dark, staring at the spot in which we thought the other's eyes lay. Then I sighed in frustration and leaned over to the table next to my bed. He heard my movements and said warily, "What are you doing?"

"I'm lighting a candle." I said, reaching for a long, thin taper. His hands shot out, found my shoulders, my arms, my hands, and tried to restrain me. "Are you insane? Anyone could see us!" he pulled my hands back between us to rest on my lap, and kept them there.

"Ah, yes, but I am wracked with guilt tonight about what I have done. I tried to sleep, but could not, and so I lit my candle to keep me company in this my darkest hour so could you please let go of my hands?" I shook his grip off me and turned to light the candle. He did nothing to stop me. When the flame engulfed the wick, the room corner of the room in which we sat was kissed with light, and I turned back to him, sitting next to me on my bed.

"Tell me what happened," I said, now actually looking him in the eyes, a good three inches to the left of where I had thought him.

The man was named Will. Will Scarlet, actually. I assume you noticed his hair," I nodded, noticing again the calm clarity of his eyes, at the methodic nature with which he spoke. "He and Elizabeth split up to walk through the servants' hallways, and met again outside, where they continued on foot out of the castle walls, and were met by one of my men with a cart. All in all, it took about ten minutes for them to escape."

I smiled with relief, rolling my head back as the stiffness was released from my muscles, letting out a breath I had not been aware I had been holding.

"Perfect," I said. "There was no was of distinguishing them, and they were gone before anyone would suspect something. No theatrics, not derring-do. Perfect."

"I'm glad you approve. The theatrics, I'm afraid, entirely rest with you. You haven't been questioned for the last time, you know." He tilted his head toward me, his face very serious. I nodded, sighing again.

"I know. But I will soon sink deep into my shame and ask to be allowed to go back home. Guillaume will be upset at my dishonoring of my father—"

"Guillaume?"

"Oh. My father's steward."

"Ah." Where had Guillaume been at the wedding? Sitting next to me, I remembered. I had not seen him for the rest of the day, but that meant he was probably bedding some poor servant girl tonight.

"And as I saw very little, I'm not particularly useful to them. The Sheriff and Guisborne are men action. They will waste very little time before sending out search parties for her. They won't want to sit around listening to me blather about how much like a sister Elizabeth has become."

He nodded. "Elizabeth sends word that she wants you to attend her wedding, her read wedding, if you can. She'd like for you to meet Alan, and she says she will miss you." Now I nodded, my throat closing as I thought of how much I would miss her.

He relaxed on my bed and gazed about the part of the room that was in the light giving me some privacy to regain my dignity. "Very nice room you have here."

I looked, too, and saw the grand tapestries hanging from the walls, the expensive bed with its luxurious fur blankets, at the exorbitant amount of beeswax candles I was given to light my room, and felt the bile rise up in my throat. "Yes," was all I said, raising my knees to chest level and resting my arms over them. There was silence for a moment, in which he looked at me and I stared determinedly at my knees.

"You hate it here," it was not a question.

I looked up at him, again filled with the sense that I was constantly underestimating him. He narrowed his eyes and titled his head to examine my face more closely, and I felt the beginnings of a blush creep over my features. I did my best to fight it back down; mortified at the effect this meeting was having on my self-control.

_If you were not exhausted and overjoyed about today's victory, you wouldn't be acting like a moonstruck calf. Why did you light the candle? You didn't have to, and you probably shouldn't have. Look what it's done already. _

"You hate it here, and you're exhausted," he concluded, now looking concerned. I cleared my throat and crossed my legs again, aware that I looked less vulnerable that way.

"Yes, I do. That's why I'm leaving as soon as possible." I couldn't look at him again; instead I focused on an elaborate hunt scene on a wall tapestry. Three noble huntsmen were chasing after a deer, lead by their vicious, bloodthirsty dog. The trees of the forest encircled them, assuring me that the hunters would be the victorious ones in the end, for there was nowhere else the deer could run. There was again a moment of silence, and when he did not speak I became defensive, much to my own dismay.

"I only came here to help Elizabeth escape, and now that I've done that, I have no reason and no desire to be here anymore, so I will leave and go back to where I am useful. Of course," I said, leaning my head toward Hood but not looking at him, "I still have to answer the Prince's questions, and make all the arrangements for my leaving, so I may be here another week." I trailed off bitterly. I did not want to stay here a second longer than I had to.

"Then I will tell Elizabeth that you cannot come for another week. She wants you at her wedding, and she needs to wait that long anyway, so she will wait. In the meantime," he said, now reaching out to turn my shoulders toward him. I looked at him, and saw no trace of the criticism I had been fearing to find. I looked a him, and felt again the stirrings of the feelings I had had a few nights ago. "In the meantime," he said, "you be careful, and don't get too complacent. There are those who won't let this go easily, and they may look for any reason to suspect you." We remained locked in silent agreement for a moment. The candle light flickered over his face, and for a moment, he looked as tired as I felt. He let his hands drop from my shoulders, and stood.

"Good luck, Lady Marianne. I will see you soon." And he melted back into the night from which he had come. I couldn't tell exactly when he left the room, but suddenly, inexplicably, I knew I was alone. I sat on my bed, the chill night air blowing its way around my thinly clad shoulders. Then I turned over, blew out my candle, and snuggled myself back into the bed, and fell asleep.


	11. Chapter Ten

The rest of the week went by quietly for me, shut up as I was in my room. For the world outside, though, the week was a loud, panicked mass of hunters, servants, riders, and dogs. The idea of a pack of dogs hunting down my friend terrified me, but what scared me more was the fact that Greasby was leading the hunt. I could not forget the story Elizabeth had told me about his first wife.

My seclusion was self-imposed. I hid my face from the other nobles, spoke only to the Prince, and retired to my room, distraught at the loss of my friend and my failure to help her. Gossip had started, as I had known it would. Indeed, I had been counting on it, and so I listened with relish to the tales Mary brought to me. They were the most entertainment I would get for a while.

It seemed to take forever, this week, which dragged on in a monotony of embroidery and prayer. Though that was nothing altogether different from my life before, I felt more trapped than I had before, and I missed Elizabeth terribly.

But companionship came from an unexpected place. Mary, though she had never been really formal to me from the beginning, dropped at last the deference she had displayed to me. Two days after the escape, while I stared out my window and pretended to put stitches into a new gown, she spoke, breaking a day-long silence.

"That man—" she stopped. My head snapped around, jolted from my reverie. I nodded, prompting her. "The one who came to—you know." I nodded again. "Who was he? Do you know?"

I looked at her pensively for a second. "Will. Will Scarlet. That's all I know."

"One of _his_ men?" As code went, it was terrible, and I smiled. Anyone listening would know immediately who we were talking about, and even as I nodded, still smiling at her furtiveness, I made a motion to be quiet, beckoning her closer to me.

"Why?" I asked as she sat down next to me. She looked almost afraid, and that was so uncharacteristic of my maid that I was intrigued.

"I don't know. I don't know why I'm asking about him." Her embroidery lay in her lap, neglected. "It's just—I saw him that day, before—you know, and I thought—I don't know what, but I felt—I felt as if I'd seen him before and it bothered me. Not in a bad way, you understand, but I feel as if I need to know more about him. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you with this, but I thought—I wanted to—" She trailed off. I watched her again, this time marveling at how two completely different women could feel the exact same sensations for two different men, for her feelings, inarticulately though they had been expressed, mirrored my own.

I tipped my head to her. "I understand. And I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. I know nothing more than what I was told. His name is Will Scarlet."

"Oh." There was silence as I picked up my stitching and seriously thought about continuing to work on it.

"Milady, how much do you trust Robin Hood?"

I blinked, completely unable to formulate an answer. She took advantage and pressed on, "Would you trust him with your friend's life? Or your own? And mine? Perhaps the lady is safe, as you say, but what about you? What about me? We've put ourselves in the way of dangerous men and hazardous situations. How can you be sure that no harm will come to us? I know you wanted to help your friend, and I admire that, I do, but…I'd like to know what we're going to face now. Are we in danger? Should we plan something? I want to know."

Mary was quickly becoming someone I highly respected. These were the same questions I had asked myself the night before and many nights previous. Without knowing it, she was justifying the long nights I had sat up worrying about everything this plan encompassed. That comforted me a bit.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know what we've gotten ourselves into. What _I've _gotten us into. I'm sorry. I should have understood the dangers before getting you involved. It was wrong of me. Believe me when I tell you it was because I thought I had no other choice. But you should also know that I trust Robin Hood. With my life, with Elizabeth's life, with your life. If there's anyone who can help us escape from whatever dangers we face, it is him. But we must be prepared to help ourselves as well. Very few women have ever defied what they were born to, and now that we have done so, we need to stand up for what we have done and not be ashamed. For there is nothing in this world worth fighting for if we cannot fight for ourselves and our minds. I don't want to continue to live the way I have lived, as servant of all masters, manipulating and calculating and wondering whom I will marry and when I will die. I don't want to embroider until someone else finds a use for me. I don't want to submit and obey and pretend for the rest of my life, and I will, if do not continue to fight. I want to be myself, more than anything in the world. And I want to know who that is. I'm sorry I've gotten you mixed into this, but there was no one else to ask."

Mary was watching me, her brow furrowed. I could not tell what she was thinking, and she gave nothing away. But soon she nodded, accepting, or agreeing to, what I had just said. I wanted her to understand so desperately, but I had no more words. We turned, and stared out the window again, watching as rain clouds broke and sent the first furtive raindrops to earth, soaking the ground, and, I hoped, erasing the scent of two travelers fleeing into the woods.

* * *

Guillaume had been drinking for a week straight. At first, I thought it was because he had lodged himself comfortably with one of the scullery maids and no longer felt the need to emerge into the general public. But as the week wore on, I realized that he himself must be ashamed of my own humiliation, and at the missed opportunity it had been to both win me a husband and himself recognition for his service. Now, he lolled drunkenly in the cart that was carrying our belongings back home. Tuck looked disgusted.

"How far the mighty have fallen," he quipped dryly, watching Guillaume with extreme dislike. I laughed, "Well, at least he is not brandishing his sword and puffing himself up. I do enjoy that, I must say. And it looks as if he has completely forgotten about his attraction to Mary for the time being." My maid was now comfortable installed on Tuck's mule. Tuck was mounted on Guillaume's destrier, a shiny black-and-white with a proud neck who stood some eighteen hands high. Tuck looked extremely wary of his distance from the ground, and I did not blame him.

"Only at the expense of some poor servant girl. Don't think I don't know things just because I avoid the castle like the pestilence," he said as I raised my eyebrows at him. "A priest hears more things than anyone else, you know. Men do not fear kings and bishops so much as they fear Hell."

"He confessed to you?" I asked, incredulous. Tuck's mouth tightened even further in distaste.

"Indeed. He was deep in his cups, and decided to spill everything he has ever done out to me in the spirit of contrition," I stared at Tuck, wondering just what Guillaume had said, wondering just what that kind of man had to confess to. The possibilities made me cold.

"And the girl?" I asked, suddenly concerned for her safety.

"I do not know. She lives, which is more than can be said for many others. It is best, I think, that we left when we did."

My heart reeled at this revelation. I could not have this man running the manor I had come to care about so much. I could not have him near my maids, near any woman he considered targets. For that kind of evil I had no words.

"You are sure no one suspects you?" Tuck said, completely changing tack. I looked at him again, and I saw again the frown, the concern in his eyes.

"I can't be sure of anything, Friar. I did my best to allay any suspicions, but I have to be open to the possibility that I was not as clever as I thought," I thought of Guisborne's watchful eyes the night before, when I had taken my last meal with the nobles. I thought of Greasby's heavy frown, of Beauforest's rage, of the Sheriff's quiet determination. And there were other men, too. Others whom I did not know, who could have their suspicions. There was always a danger. "I can only hope," I finished lamely, knowing it was far from comforting. Tuck glowered, obviously less than please with this answer.

We rode on. It would take a little over five hours to ride to the manor, if we took no time to rest. But, looking at Mary's face as the saddle rubbed against her skin, I knew we would not reach home until just before dusk. This should not have worried me as much as it did, but I could not help the feeling that we needed to get to the manor as soon as possible.

I could not have said where the uneasy feeling came from. The day was fine, and birds were singing, and the afternoon sun was shining, warming my back and my neck. I should have been happy to be riding back home, but I was not. Something felt wrong.

Mary shared my feelings. Later, much later, I would realize how strange it was, that two women with very little experience in these things, who had never had to be on their guard before, could feel what was coming. Later, much later, it would be remarkable to me, and even a bit amusing. Now, though, it was neither. Now, it felt as though I was riding to my death.

Mary rode up beside me. "Do you feel something?" she asked, her voice pitched needlessly quiet. "Yes," I whispered back. I could feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, but I could not put words to what it meant. Mary, however, knew exactly how to say it.

"It feels like we're being followed, doesn't it?"

And just like that, everything clicked into place. Last night, at dinner, and his determination not to look at me. His clenching and unclenching fists when I spoke. Elizabeth's voice in my head, _He killed his first wife, you know.._._ He's an excellent hunter_.

I halted abruptly, wheeling about in my saddle to look behind us at the idyllic weather, the beautiful pastures, the emptiness. Tuck and Mary halted, too, looking at me in alarm.

"No," I said, my heart pounding. "Not followed. Hunted." I locked eyes with Tuck, and I think he knew what I meant to do before I could put words to it. But he was paralyzed with fear as well, and so he could not protest as I said, "Tuck, take Mary up with you, and ride as hard as you can to the manor. Do not stop for anything, just keep going. Tie the donkey to the cart, it can travel more slowly, there's nothing Greasby wants on it."

"_Greasby?_" Tuck echoed, but I was already speaking. "I will ride in a different direction. It's me he hates, and if I'm not with you, he won't consider going after you. I want you to ride, Tuck," I said, seeing the protest in his eyes. "I want you to ride and get her to safety, do you understand. I will meet you if I can, but if I don't," I looked from Mary to Tuck and back, "it has been an honor to know the both of you. Now go." Mary slithered down from her saddle, wincing, and ran to a still-dazed Tuck, who held out his hand automatically and helped her up behind him. He looked to be about to say something, but thought better of it, and dug his heels into the destrier's flanks. I watched as they shot off, becoming very small in the matter of seconds. I gave quick instructions to the man on the cart, then turned my horse around, looking at the road that stretched behind us, a road along which Greasby hid. My blood was cold, my hands trembling. I was going to die. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. I had no time to think of my regrets, of the things I wished I could have done. If I was going to die, I would at least try to save my friends. That much I could do, now.

I turned my horse to face an open field, and, taking a deep breath, I prodded her into a gallop, racing as fast as I could away from everything I wanted.

I knew he would follow me, and I knew, as I kicked my mare onwards, that it would only be a matter of time until he caught me.


	12. Chapter Eleven

A sack covered my head. My hands were tied cruelly behind my back, and I was jolted back and forth across the neck of Greasby's horse. Hours before, early into my capture, I had tried to rub against my bonds, hoping to at least be more comfortable. But by now, the pain in my shoulders extreme, I had stopped trying. It didn't particularly matter, anyway. I was going to die.

He had caught me an hour after the chase began. I had been able to see him gaining me, and it seemed that no matter how fast I ran, no matter what semi-hidden paths I had taken, he knew exactly where I would be, and he was just a little faster than me. I tried to spur my mare on, sobbing in panic, praying to God to save me. He wouldn't, I knew. I had already made my bargain with Him. I had already accepted the inevitability of my death, but that didn't mean I wasn't terrified. We had ridden side by side for a moment, and I could see the gleam in his eyes, the triumph as he toyed with me, anticipating the blow of his sword.

It never came. Instead, he stuck me hard across the face with the back of his hand, and I tumbled off my saddle, striking my left shoulder hard against the ground. He had tied me up in a manner of seconds, and now here I was, riding somewhere where I would be killed.

It terrified me that he hadn't already killed me. He must have wanted me alive for something, and even in the midst of all my fear, I felt even more afraid of what that meant. He didn't speak to me, or so much as make a sound for the entire time we rode. I had thought he would triumph, rage, that he would taunt me or curse me. I was in his power, he could have done or said anything he wanted to.

But he did nothing. The said nothing. I wondered, as I waited for what was to come, how exactly his first wife had died. Had he taken her to some remote location to torture her until she died? They had found her two days after she had run away, that gave him plenty of time to—to do what he wanted.

Tears soaked the bag over my head, and I forced myself to stop crying before I drowned myself from weeping upside down. I needed to have some control in the last few moments of my life. I needed that much, at least, before I died.

And die I would, soon enough. We rode on. He was, quite possibly thinking about what he would do to me. I was breathing, and I was praying.


	13. Chapter Twelve

I was slung unceremoniously from the saddle, and for the second time in a day I landed with a thud on the ground. I gasped for breath as the wind was knocked out of me, the bag over my faced sucked into my mouth as I sobbed for oxygen.

Greasby grabbed my throat around the bag and brought me to what I imagined was face-to-face.

"Where is she?" It was a demand. I shook my head, still gasping for air as it made its way slowly into my lungs. He shook me viciously. "_Where is she????_"

I got enough air in me to choke, "I don't know," feebly, but before I had even said "don't" he was already shaking me again.

"I don't' want your lies, bitch! You may have pulled the wool over everyone else's eyes, but not mine. I remember you from before, I know what you are. You stole her from me, you and your that cur, and you'll scream for mercy before I'm done! Now where is she?"

"I don't know!" I sobbed through the bag. "The plan was for me to get her out of the castle, that's all I know, I swear! He didn't tell me where they were going, or what they would be doing! That wasn't for me to know! I don't know, I don't know where she is!"

Hood had been right. He was right not to have told me the entire plan, for now I could tell the truth, and not be afraid of myself and my will to keep it a secret. At least I would not have to live the last minutes of my life knowing I had betrayed my friend. At least I had that.

But Greasbv didn't believe me. "You know, whore! You know, and you're going to tell me, or you're going to feel very real pain!" I heard him unsheathe his dagger, and I froze in fear. It was so much worse not being able to see it. I had wanted to face my death bravely, but here, tied up as I was, with the hood over my head, I no longer as courageous as I had wanted, and I cursed him, screaming something, I don't remember. I wouldn't tell him, I couldn't tell him, I didn't know, and I was afraid, so afraid, of my death.

He nudged his toe cruelly into my ribs, and kicked me over so I lay face down on the ground, breathing in for a moment the earthly smell of pine needles and oak leaves. Then I felt his weight on my back, and the cool air that rushed along my skin as my dress was slit from shoulder to small. Then I sucked in my breath as he ran the tip of his dagger across my spine.

"That got your attention, didn't it, _milady?_ Well, since you plan on being so unhelpful to me, then you can amuse me," here he let the blade nick me superficially, and I gritted my teeth against the pain. "Of course, if you want this to end, all you have to do is tell me where to find what is mine. Just tell me where she is, and I'll stop." He pricked me again, the knife digging in an opposite direction to the first slice. In heroic tales and songs, in old ballads and the like, the hero often spits in the face of such danger and tells his adversary to do his worst. I did neither. Instead, I concentrated on controlling the yelps of pain that welled into my throat every time the knife broke skin.

He took to talking to me, trying to get me to answer him, trying to get me to talk at all. He spoke of what he would do to Elizabeth when he found her, the lying, blood-traitorous slut. He mused over the best way to kill her lover. Should he castrate him? Kill him? Both? Maybe evisceration was the key. That would certainly cause him excruciating pain, but it would also kill him, which could be a drawback. There was merit in keeping your enemy alive to be able to see how much you've ruined his life, you understand. It was a conundrum, indeed. He talked on and on as he sliced deeper and deeper into my back. I bit through my lip, tasting blood and feeling it welling around my mouth and nose, feeling it pooling inside the filthy bag that covered my head. Wetness trickled down my back, more blood, and down my face, in the tears that I would not broadcast but could not stop. I clenched my hands into fists, scrabbling in the dirt to grab handfuls of soil and acorns and dead leaves.

"Yes, not very comfortable is it? How long would it take, do you think, for you to bleed to death like this? A long time, I'd wager. I'd have to keep opening up these cuts, they aren't deep enough to stay open long enough. Of course, we could change that," he drew his knife deeper into my back, digging in with extra fervor.

_Wait, Marianne, just wait. Breathe. In, out, good. Don't think about the pain. Think about the manor. What will you do when you return there? Things do need to be done, work, building repairs, so on. Breathe. He might give you an opportunity to get away. Let him get confident he's won. Breathe. In, out, in, no, don't cry out you stupid girl. How are you going to take care of harvest season? Breathe…_

I knew it was hopeless. He would never let me go, and now I was completely immobilized by the open wounds down my back. I cursed myself for not acting sooner, for letting myself get paralyzed with fear at the one moment when I needed most to act. Then I reminded myself why I was doing this, told myself there was nothing I could have done before this. _Wait, Marianne. Just wait. _

"You're a pretty piece of flesh, though. I know that you don't follow the fashion, you're not blonde, for instance, but there's something about you that extremely—sensual. May I say that? Of course I may, it's not as if you'll strike me for my lack of chivalry," he let out a great guffaw that reverberated in the clearing. "It must be that you're getting older, and you're still a maid. The maiden Marian, you must feel lust every once in awhile, mustn't you? To be sure, aging penniless spinsters are humans, too. You must long for a marriage bed. You know it will never be yours. But if you like, I can relieve you of your desire for it. It would be simply done, you know. Quite painful for you, I'm afraid. Not very comfortable for the women, that. But then you'd learn how to hide yourself. Then you'd learn the kind of effect a girl can have on a man."

I had thought him a brute, obtuse and unsubtle. I had thought him unintelligent and impatient with his kill. Now I understood why he was considered such a great hunter. He lured his game into hunting itself. He ran the blade superficially again, this time barely cutting the skin along my spine, reveling in the sting it caused as it crossed my other wounds. My cheeks were wet with tears, the front of the bag soaked. I had to fight my breathing, pulling it in and out slowly and carefully, trying to break the lump in my throat that made me want to sob brokenly for air, for the pain, the stinging, clotting, aching pain, made me want to weep openly. But I couldn't weep. If I did, he'd think he was winning.

_Of course he's winning. He's already won. You just don't want to give him the satisfaction of thinking his victory is complete. Face it. The more you cry, the more pleasure he gets, the longer you stay alive. Wouldn't it just be better if he kills you now? Then at least you wouldn't be raped. Breathe. In, Out. Don't let him see your pain. _

My fists closed into tighter balls, my nails digging into my palms. He twirled the knife point-down on my shoulder blade, as if he was playing a game or pondering a difficult question. "Now, here's something I don't understand. You entice men, you know, you've done it to me, and to Sir Guy, he's smitten, and even your cousin the Prince, and to the Sheriff, though you only met him once. So you're not oblivious to power. You enjoy seducing it, don't you, you little strumpet? So now, if you could have your pick of any of those powerful men, why would you choose to place your favor in Robin i' th' Hood? He gets you nothing, no power, no prestige, definitely no money—don't you know? One of his more charming qualities is that he gives his money to the poor. Tragically heroic, is it not? It must be for the thrill, then, the knowledge that you're being a very bad Norman girl. Not right. Makes a proper nobleman feel inadequate, cheated, even, for I would have paid a price to visit your bed, I'm sure. Elizabeth is wealthy, I know," here he drew a long line down my back, not stopping until he reached the place where my back met my hips, "but she has nothing of your—mystery. You are an enigma, and I enjoy that. Take now, for instance. You're not crying or screaming. You know you're going to die, and yet you won't even cry out? Not even to make one final sound? Impressive. What will it prove, though? You can let it out, now, darling. You can let it go. No one here but us. No one here who would know what you did," he scored my shoulder blade again, then chuckled slightly, as if he was amused and, despite himself, impressed.

And then he did something that brought me sharply into focus. His hand left my back, and returned, empty. His left was on my shoulder, and now his right was tracing the side of my spine not pierced by his knife. He was no longer armed.

_But what can you do? You don't know how to fight, you're injured, you're blind. If you move, he could come back at you, if you—_

"No one here to hear us. If you want to live, you could sweeten my prospects. We could be very, very loud here, and no one would know."

_Nothing to lose now, girl, just move. _

I tried to remember what I had seen from tourneys and guardsman training back in France. I summoned up all the strength I had, bracing my hands against the ground. My voice, when it came out, was muffled, weepy, and horse from the sobs I had not allowed myself to make.

"All right. If that's what you want."

There was a pause, then the bag was whipped off my head. Firelight pierced my eyes, making me blink rapidly, trying to adjust my eyes quickly.

"Say that again," he said, kneeling over me. I pressed my forehead to the ground and said, "If you want me, come and take me. You're right, it's useless to resist." A rough hand turned me over, making me gasp audibly at the pain of the deep scores across my back. He was looking at me hungrily, his otherwise calm face now wreathed in triumph. Eagerly, he slid my ruined dress off my shoulders, exposing my chest. I cringed in shame as he bent his head hungrily, then brought my bound hands down across his face with as must strength as I could muster. My combined fists connected with his temple, and he reeled back, more surprised then hurt. In the two seconds I had before he collected himself again, I scrabbled for his knife in the leaves, finding it just as he reached for my hands to immobilize me. My hand flashed up in an abbreviated slash, and he drew in his breath as his side became wet with the blood from the superficial cut I had just inflicted.

I kicked my legs upward, trying to dislodge him from his perch. He had my hands in his now, but he wouldn't be able to take the knife away without risking letting me go. I twisted my lower body so that I was lying awkwardly on my side with my shoulders pressed to the ground. My skirts got in the way as I tried to kick my way out the opening between his legs. It was becoming more and more apparent that I would have to be very careful about what I did. I was much weaker than he, and what with my back, I would tire much faster than he would. I arched my body up, lifting his with my hip, attempting to trap his leg with one of my own. I managed to hook my ankle over his, but he clamping his body firmly over mine, and I couldn't move.

I scrabbled in the dirt, trying to arch up again, to throw him off, to throw him off balance, to do something, anything, to get him off me. I grunted, kicked, strained my arms against his, rolled my head from side to side.

It was useless. I had only delayed the inevitable, and now that he was angry, I would suffer even more than I had before. I was going to be raped, tortured, and killed. That was that. And no one would particularly care, since I was of relatively no use to anyone.

I rolled my head to the side again, trying with the last of strength to destroy his balance with a throw of my hip. That was when I saw the other man.

He was leaning against a tree not far away, watching me with cool interest, as if he had been there the entire time. He was dourly dressed, in a muted gray-green, but two sharp daggers glinted at his sides. The fire didn't quite illuminate his face, but I recognized him instantly. Hard eyes, fire-red hair, scarred hands. I stopped fighting suddenly, letting my limbs go limp as I cried, "Help me! Please!"

Greasby's head snapped up, and he took in Will's presence as I had, in a short second. With a mighty heave, and the very last of my strength, I bucked my hip, throwing Greasby off to the right of me. I rolled to the side as quickly as I could, climbing to my knees with difficulty as Greasby got to his. I didn't know what I was going to do next. Should I kill him? I didn't have the strength to club him as he had done me.

But I didn't have to make that choice. Will stepped forward in that moment and suddenly, his dagger was in his hand, and he had drawn it across Greasby's throat, and there was blood everywhere, on his hands, on my face, on my gown, my exposed chest, the ground. Greasby's body crashed to the earth heavily, leaving a ringing silence in the clearing.

Leaving me alone with Will, who had watched me almost be raped and killed as if he was listening to a master storyteller spin the best tale ever told. I was panting, gasping for air, the tears now running down my cheeks. As I tried to pull up my dress with my tied hands, he calmly wiped his knife and hands on a square of cloth, which he returned to his belt. Then, as if nothing had happened, he looked up at me.

"Hello again. Don't worry, you can trust me."


	14. Chapter Thirteen

I was shaking violently, I could feel the blood trickling down my back, the sting and ache of the cuts. My gown had fallen, humiliatingly, off my shoulders and past my chest, held up by my elbows. And the man who had just killed my attacker was standing in front of me, soaked in his victim's blood.

I could trust him? No, that was wrong, wrong, _wrong_. How could I trust him when he had stood by and let it happen? How could I trust him when I had just seen him slit a man's throat like a sheep's? I had to get away as fast as possible. It didn't matter that he'd helped Elizabeth, that he was one of Robin Hood's men. I had to get away now. I struggled to my feet, ignoring Scarlet's outstretched hand, and ran away as fast as I possibly could. I had no idea where I was going, and, as I would discover later, I was actually heading farther into the forest, not out of it. I could barely think through the panic, the pain, the mortification. Tears coursed down my cheeks with every step I took, which was not many. Light footsteps sounded behind me, and Scarlet caught up with me easily. I sobbed harder in frustration at my body and my own weakness, that I could not even give a good chase.

He caught my by my shoulders, pulling my dress farther up my body. I shook harder at the contact. "Stop."

"No, no, no," I said, and raised my hands to fight him off, my back screaming at me. I was ready to fight, no matter how exhausted I was. I wouldn't die without fighting him. I hadn't fought off Greasby only to be killed now, by someone who was supposed to be an ally. He raised his eyes to the sky in exasperation, and bent to look me directly in the eye, and said "Stop, please," in a quiet voice, and my voice cut out mid-sob. I looked up at him, frightened, my body still shaking in the panic of two minutes ago, as he looked at me eye-level. "I'm not here to hurt you, Lady Marianne. You _are _lady Marianne, of course?" I looked at him blankly. "I'm going to need either a yes or a no on this, milady, I don't have the power to hear your thoughts. That is, if you actually have any."

I felt the stirrings of indignation in my blood, along with disbelief. Was it possible that he didn't remember me from Elizabeth's wedding day? How could that be? And who was he to talk to me like that? I was Marianne de Quesnel for God's sake!

"Yes," I said, lifting my chin so I could look down on him, "I am lady Marianne."

"That's all I needed to know," he said, dropping his hands. "I'm here to bring you to Robin Hood's camp. He's been out of his mind with worry for you, might I add. We had word that you didn't arrive home when Tuck and your maid did. You lead a very dramatic life, it seems. So now you're going to come with me to see him, get that back fixed up, see your friend, the Norman girl Elizabeth."

I looked at him in consideration, crossing my arms in front of my chest and rubbing my arms to stave off the chills that ran up and down my body. I was still shaking like a leaf, but I didn't want this man to see it.

"You're going to have to be quiet for awhile," he said, as if he believed me incapable. "Think you can manage that?" His tone was derisive, and, within me, I felt resentment at being talked to in that manner. I nodded, trying to lift my shaking chin far enough to tell him how he _should_ be speaking to me.

"Hmm. We'll see about that. Next time I tell you you can trust me, believe me, or I'll be forced to go to extremes to prove it to you, all right?" Despite his words, he sounded bored, as if this whole ordeal had taken him away from something he was _really _interested in. I wondered briefly that he did not believe slitting a man's throat to be extreme. I nodded again, still shaking, trying to divine his intentions through his eyes. I could not. I had thought Hood to be implacable, but this man—this man I could nothing about.

"Now, I'm going to take you to Robin Hood—you know him, I suppose—and you're not going to scream, or talk, or bother me in any way, you hear? And if you do, I'll leave you in the middle of the forest for the bloody bears to gobble up." I was beginning to get the feeling that this job was not only tedious to him, but distasteful. Well, we'd see if I helped _him_ in the future. Scarlet gestured toward his horse, whom I had not seen before now. She was old and grey, not at all the kind of steed such a man would ride, and munching some ferns nonchalantly.

Oddly, it was the sight of the horse that made me believe Scarlet. His own actions and words and disrespectful tone had done little to recommend him to me. But the sight of such a docile, kind-eyed creature being to comfortable in his presence made me consider the possibility that he was telling the truth. I stepped toward her, gritting my teeth as blood ran down my back, soaking the back of my hopelessly torn gown, and reached out a hand to test my theory. She reached her nose to me, and nuzzled my palm, and I was convinced.

_Possibly not the best of all survival instincts, Marianne_, I chided myself, but I turned to him and took a deep breath, nodding in agreement to his condition. I didn't feel like talking much, anyway.

Seconds later, I was behind him on the saddle, and we were moving further into the forest, every movement the mare made sending shockwaves of pain through my back, until I finally succumbed to exhaustion and fainted, riding blind deep into the forest with a man who had blood on his hands.

* * *

The next thing I was aware of was pain. Something stung against my back, and I groaned slightly as one particularly large cut was treated.

"Ah, awake, eh?" said a voice I didn't know. I opened my eyes to find that I was once more lying on my stomach, though now it was against a warm fur in a dimly lit area. I could feel the cold of stone to my left, and my companion was to my right. For a moment, as I got my bearings, I didn't remember what had happened to me. Then it came to me as my back stung again. Greasby. Greasby had…and now he was dead.

I cursed myself as my body began to shiver again. "Easy, now, love," the voice, a man's, said soothingly. I wanted to turn over and see his face, but my single attempt wrenched the now-scabbed cuts so painfully that I immediately gave up on the idea. "That's right, don't move so much. Besides, I'm not much to look at anyway. Far past my prime, you might say. Ah well, we can't be as beautiful as we want to be. But these cuts, now," he said, moving from one slice to another, his hands probing but gentle, "these cuts are gorgeous! You'll have quite a round of stories to be able to tell people you meet. Grandkids, especially. They'll ask you why you're so brave and tough you don't cry at anything, and you'll sit 'em on your knee and say, 'well, it was back when I was but a lass,' and they'll listen with awe and respect you forever. Good, too, for kids to respect their granddam." I sucked in my breath as my cut stung again, and gritted out, "I'd much prefer not to talk about my wounds, thank you."

There was a small chuckle, followed by silence. I soon wished I hadn't spoken to quiet him, for there was soon nothing to take my mind off his hands' work. I was ready to say something, anything, to get him to talk again when he said, as if no time had passed between my last comment, " 'Course, not now, you won't. Understandable. Don't think I'd like to talk about my war wounds right after the war. Everything stings. No fun at all, not even on long night sitting around a fire. Nope. But you'll see. Soon they'll be a thing of pride, and a thing of wonder. Also, anyone ever calls you soft, you can whip round and show 'em these and they'll take it right back."

I grimaced a smile. "Unfortunately the proper modes of dress would put a stop to that immediately." I tried to imagine 'whipping round' and showing off my back to the nobles of the Norman Court, and it struck me as so absurd that I felt compelled to laugh. Remembering my back, though, I did not. Instead, I lay there and let the stranger's hands slowly and carefully clean my cuts, then sew my skin back together.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

A/N: This is the last of my author's notes unless something major happened. I just wanted to let everyone know that the first thirteen chapters of this story have been fully edited, and are very different from what they were before. Not so much in plotline as in writing, and some are very short because I've erased things I didn't like, but had nothing to put in their place. So read them, if you want, or don't, but do know that some character's names have changed, as have a few of the event details (who did what, etc.). Hope you enjoy, and thank you for being so patient with me.

Chapter Fourteen

When I awoke again, my face was turned away from the wall. I could see around the small cave I was lying in, but the first thing that caught my eye was Hood, sitting cross-legged on the ground some three paces away. He had his back to me, sharpening a knife with slow, precise strokes. I had never seen him in daylight before, and for a moment I took in the line of his shoulders, the exact movement of his hands, the angle of his head. What strength lay behind his quiet conviction? What did he really believe in? I knew nothing of him, but I found myself fascinated by what I knew and could see. I was also very conscious of the fact that I still wore the dress that had been sliced by Greasby's knife, and that my bare back lay exposed to the open air.

"Good morning," I murmured, already feeling my eyelids drooping with fatigue. He turned, sheathing his knife and kneeling a bit closer.

"Lady Marian. It's actually more along the lines of afternoon. Welcome to Sherwood." His voice was quiet and grave, and I thought I saw a flicker of concern in those grey eyes. We regarded each other for a moment, and then he said, "Will has told me a little of what happened, but I'd like to hear the story from you, if you think you can tell me."

"I can't believe you sent_ him _to help Elizabeth." I felt the stirrings of anger rising in me from what seemed a far way away. I was still very very tired.

"Why?" his brow furrowed a bit, and for a moment I wondered if that meant he was confused or simply censuring me for my negative opinion for his men.

"He's terrifying, is why. He killed Greasby in cold blood and then acted as if nothing had happened—"

"—Killed Greasby, who, if you haven't forgotten, maimed your back and was going to do even worse harm—"

"—of course I haven't forgotten. Don't do me the disservice of treating me as if I were a child."

"It is entirely likely Will saved both your honor and your life. Do not do _him _the disservice of treating him like a monster. I would have done the same thing myself in the situation. Besides," he continued, eyes narrowing even further, "he's the only one I could trust to do the job correctly, and not kill you and Mary with the blows you insisted on receiving." He looked away across the cave, and I felt suddenly guilty for making him angry, for though he had not changed his tone, I knew he was irate.

"Look at us. I can barely move and we're already fighting. How is Elizabeth?" He glanced at me again, perhaps seeing the apology on my face, and said, "She and Alan are anxious to wed, but will wait for you. She's doing well." We sat in silence for a time, and I was in danger of dropping off again, however hard I tried to fight it, when he said, "They will come looking for you." He was not looking at me, but had turned his back and was looking at the wall in front of him.

I didn't move. "I know." I had been on my way home, it was true, but word would get out soon enough that a Norman lady had disappeared into thin air.

"The Sheriff is a smart man. He'll know where to come looking, even if he doesn't know the exact location of the camp. We might have to move on sooner than I expected."

I nodded, understanding.

"I am sorry I cannot offer you better protection than that." He said even more quietly. I watched the stillness of his body, the firm control under which he kept himself. He gave nothing away, and yet I found myself able to see what he was thinking.

"You are Robin Hood," I said simply. "You need to be invisible. I understand." And again there was silence. In any other situation, I would have jumped to fill the silence with something, some remark, some sound, some conversation, some song. But here, in this cave and with this man, there was no need to say anything. We would speak when we had something to say, I supposed, and not before.

"I should go back as soon as possible, though," I said finally. His head turned a bit toward my voice, but I still could not see his face. "It might interrupt their search for a bit. And they'll find Greasby soon, I imagine. I'll have to explain that."

"Sleep for now," he said, finally turning to look at me. "Rest, and heal, and we will speak of this later."

My eyelids felt heavier than they had ever felt in my life, and I let them fall over my eyes, letting sleep claim me once again before I could think anything else.

I slept off and on for four days. It was not until the third day, when I was awake enough, that I understood that my anonymous caretaker was giving me some draught or other to make me sleep. But on the morning of the fourth day, limbs aching with lack of movement, I sat up for the first time, testing the strength of the stitches in my back. They were painful, and pulled a bit, but held. Someone had finally change the dress I was wearing; the one I had now was one of the rough ones I had given Elizabeth. I listened for a few moments for any noises from outside the cave and, hearing none, Slowly pried myself up onto my feet and stepped out of the darkness.

It looked to be mid-afternoon, judging by the sun that shone in through the dome of leaves above my head. In front of the cave mouth was a small fire pit, and tending to the fire was a small man I had seen before. I must have made some sound or other, because Much turned to me and started in recognition.

"Lady Marian! You should not be out of bed!" He hurried me closer to the fire, indicating that I should sit down on a fur roll stretched across the ground. I remained standing, however. After standing up, I had no idea how I was going to sit down again without causing myself undue pain. I looked about me through the forest, marking the silence, the dense greenery that surrounded me. Then I turned to the man again, now sitting back on his rock, adding a log to the fire.

He squinted at me for a moment, then stuck out his hand. "Much. Much the miller's son, to be more exact. Formerly of Locksley. Pleased to meet you formally. To answer your question, the one you didn't ask, the rest are off. Will's probably hunting, and it's getting to be around mid-afternoon, so John'll be felling trees with his bare hands and wrestling bears. Alan and Elizabeth and are off whispering sweet courtly nothings to each other, and Robin and the others are off on a job. So it's just the two of us here until the mighty hordes return home, I'm afraid. Do I smell terrible?"

"Do you—"

"Smell terrible. You can answer me honestly, I swear I won't be hurt. Do I give off some sort of pong that is unsavory to the human nose?"

"No—t that I've noticed."

"Then perhaps you should sit down there. Adam was adamant, if you will, that you should rest, especially when you got cranky and listless and wanted to go gallivanting off. Or are you poised to run if Will returns early?" I looked at him sharply. For a moment I considered upbraiding him for speaking to me in such a way, but that would get me no information and no sympathy here. Instead, I asked "Hood told you of Will?"

"What a terribly awkward way of putting it. First off, he's not 'Hood.' Only the Sheriff and the Prince call him that. And Guisborne, when he's not saying things like 'cur' and 'son-of-a-dog.' He goes by 'Robin.' The 'Hood' bit was added by the villagers to give him a bit of mystery. Secondly, there's no need for him to 'tell me of Will.' It's obvious. In the first place, Will is a scary scary man. And the fact that he had you over the back of the horse when you two rode in means that you two did have some contact. Which means you know how scary he can be. So really, I'm just stating the obvious when I say you're afraid of him. Bacon?" He held up a wooden bowl to me, which I took gratefully, finally deciding to lie down upon the furs. It took a bit of maneuvering, but I was obliged to see that Much did not try to help me. I lay on my stomach and ate the hot food with gusto. Then a thought came to me, and I said, "You said Hoo—Robin was out on a job. What did you mean by that?"

"Out stealing, of course," he said, tucking into some bacon himself.

"Ah." There was silence for a moment. "Stealing from whom?"

"There's a tax collection today," was his reply. Apparently, he thought that explained everything, for he asked, "So, the bacon tastes good, then?" He had smiled to see how quickly I had gulped it down. Now I tried hard not to think of the way my stomach still rumbled, thinking of how there were still so many mouths to feed later on.

"Very. Are you the cook, then?"

"Ha! As if they'd let me anywhere near the food on a daily basis! The only thing I know how to cook is bacon, and cook it I do, if there's ever any chance to do so. In fact, I think the only reason I am near any provisions at all is because John didn't want guard duty, so it's up to me."

"Guard duty?"

Much flicked his eyes around us meaningfully. "You don't think this is a safe place on its own, do you? And even if it were, we'd have to have someone look after you, now wouldn't we? Thus, guard duty."

"Ah." I wished I could find something more interesting to say. I pulled at pieces of the fur, wishing I was more talkative.

"Mind you, I really have no objection to guard duty. It means less death threats, on the whole, less running away from armed guards or from Guisborne and his lot. I'm not terribly concerned with being left behind with my bacon. Though," he said, popping another piece into his mouth, "ask me that again once I've been doing this for about three days, and I'll probably have changed my mind. And gone insane. Don't like sitting in one place for very long. Not very patient. My ol' dad used to tell me I'd bedevil the Devil himself with my fidgeting. Probably best that I'm not a miller, then. Though there is a fair bit of walking, when you're a miller. In circles. Very small circles. No, I think I'm all right where I am. More?" he held out his hand for my bowl, and I handed it to him gladly, trying not to wince as my arm stretched out to him.

"How's the back?" he said, filling my bowl again.

"Better."

"Liar. You know, you don't have to clam up so much. You can talk about it. Robin and Will and John are like that as well. And Alan. And Joseph. Aaaaand quite possibly Elizabeth. None of them speak enough, though Alan sings well. Adam talks, but I think it's because he has to, beside manner and all that. No real sense in not speaking about things, especially if they're true. For instance, I can say, 'I like this bacon a lot, and I'm enjoying this day of rest and relaxation,' and _you _can say—"

"—My back hurts."

"There we are." I smiled down at my bowl. "Wasn't too hard, now was it?"

The rest of Robin Hood's men came trickling in as it grew dark. True to Much's prediction, Will had been hunting, and had returned with a brace of conies slung across his shoulders. Elizabeth and Alan, who had greeted me happily when they wandered in about two hours before dusk, sat side by side, hands clasped fast. Watching them, I could see how attuned they were to each other. Alan was all care and consideration, Elizabeth all earnest watchfulness. They made a very pretty pair as well. I had done right, I decided now. I had done right, in helping her.

Adam was the man who had treated me. I recognized his voice instantly, and I acknowledged the truth of his statement that he wasn't much to look at. But I remembered his kindness and his care of me, and besides, I had never been stunningly attractive myself. Soon, twenty or so men had gathered around the fire, and the man Joseph had taken over the cooking duties. They ranged in ages from the very young—not sixteen—to the middle aged, and were a motley bunch at that. I got the feeling that I had not yet seen the whole group, and that I would never see all of them in the same place at the same time. Much and Adam seemed to hold up the conversation better than the others, often talking to each other for long stretches with no other input from the rest. They didn't even falter when the biggest man I had ever seen trudged into the firelight.

He was a mountain of a man, with a full beard and heavy limbs very badly clothed in clothing that was slightly too small. He looked fit to burst from his tunic at the mere movement of his shoulders. He wasn't fat, but he was large in all aspects, with enormous muscles and hands that could cover my entire face with room to spare. The word "_géante_" came to mind, but faced with his very impressive stature and very angry face, I could not think of its English equivalent.

He looked at me and growled slightly in the back of his throat, so like a dog that I lost the hesitation I had felt, and would have laughed had it not been for the extreme dislike in his eyes. I was confused, for though I knew it was directed at me, I had never met him before. What had I done to him to make him hate me?

"Food, John?" Much asked, having finished his latest conversation with Adam. Joseph held out a bowl for him, and the mountain—John, apparently—took it gruffly. He did not sit down. I raised my eyebrows at Adam, who quirked up his mouth but said nothing, shaking his head. Much leaned in closer, "You remember how I said John didn't want guard duty?" I nodded. "It was because he's none to fond of you, I'm afraid."

"But what did I do?" I asked incredulously.

John broke in loudly, " I can hear you speaking about me, Much." Much shrugged as he moved away, turning his eyes to John. "No need to be snappy, John. I was just explaining to the lady Marian your extreme distaste for her personally. Thought she ought to know about that." He didn't make it a contest or a battle, but John rose immediately to the challenge. "Nothing but trouble comes from that lot." His eyes were narrowed, and if I hadn't been suddenly angry, I would have taken witness to the signals that I should refrain from speaking.

But I was angry. " 'That lot'?" I said. "I suppose you mean Normans, yes? Strange that your band, and, presumably, you as well, look on my friend Elizabeth so favorably and yet _you_ think that I am nothing but trouble simply because I'm a Norman. Have you forgotten the help I've given to you? What I've gone through to protect my friend and this group? My Norman upbringing has everything to do with my parentage and nothing to do with my potential for stirring up trouble."

"Be fair, John," Much said warningly, "she is an outlaw, too, and she _has _helped us, you know."

"The time I want some prig of a Norman woman to join my band is the time when I lie cold and dead underneath the ground." John ground out. Alan sat up, glaring at John indignantly. "John, that's enough!"

John opened his mouth to retort, looking put-upon and positively murderous, but was silenced by a quiet voice to my left. "John."

All it took was one word, and the giant was silenced. Robin Hood had appeared, melted back into the firelight without so much as a sound. John had been facing him, and had not seen him, and I wondered at what a man could do with that skill.

Hood—Robin—settled down between a young lad named Gilbert and another Will who was nicknamed Bowman. He accepted a bowl from Joseph courteously and nodded to everyone in the camp before tucking in. There were no questions about how the day had gone, whether or not they had been successful. It was assumed, perhaps, that it had. Robin Hood's men were the best, and the jingling bag that had fallen to the ground as Hood had sat down was testimony to that.

He joined Much and Adam in conversation, and soon everyone was participating, the most laconic of them all putting in a word or two here and there. I looked in wonder about the circle, which until a moment ago had been simply a motley gathering of different men, and was now a collected, unified group under one leader. That was a power far greater than walking silently in the forest.

Hood caught my measuring gaze, and I think I must have smiled at him slightly, because the corners of his own mouth turned up for a second before he continued with the animated discussion the group was having.

I felt warm suddenly, as if I was blushing all over my body. I could not say what it was that made me look at John, standing alone outside the circle, but when I did, I saw him look from Hood to me and back, a very strange expression on his face, one that came so close to hurt that my breath was taken away.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

To make up for her absence the day before, Elizabeth sat with me the next. The fresh air agreed with her; her eyes sparkled, she smiled when she spoke, and her hair, now loose from its noble headdress, tumbled down her back, soaking in this newfound freedom.

"How do you like him?" she asked me anxiously after I had eaten a simple breakfast of porridge.

"Alan?"

"Yes." She looked so worried that I had to smile, to which she smiled, and laughed, a high, clear sound that suited her. "He makes you so happy, Elizabeth, how could I not approve? And besides," I said, leaning in as if sharing a secret, "he is handsome, and kind, and an excellent musician." I could have gone on, if I had wanted to, for I could see her eating up my approval, and her own happiness, as if she had been starving for years, as indeed she had been.

The she said, "Oh, did you like that ballad? He wrote it himself, the horrible showoff." Alan had indeed sung a ballad after supper the night before, a song which had detailed the daring escape of the Lady Eliza from the claws of her evil betrothed. It was an excellent song, and so cleverly written that I could not help a twinge of real admiration for Alan. Of course, the men had been ever-so-slightly outraged by the minstrel's coloring of the story, in which he figured himself prominently, but I had thought it more wishful thinking than arrogance, for the boy had a level head on his shoulders, for all he was so young.

"Yes, I did like it," I hesitated before asking her my question, but then I plowed ahead and said, "Elizabeth, do you know why John hates me?"

The smile fell a little from her face, and I felt guilty for killing her good mood. She pondered for a moment, her forehead crinkling in thought. "No, I don't. I mean, for all he was so against Norman women in general, he has no problem with me. And he is a nice man. A bit gruff, and very big, but nice. Robin's greatest friend, you know. Like brothers. I've never seen him like that before in my life. I don't know, Marian, I really don't know."

I sighed heavily, puzzled. I could live with people hating me, as long as there was a reason for it. Competition, fine, personality differences, all the better, but I had never met the man before, and he treated me as if I was the plague. And then there was that look on his face from the night before… I was confused.

"Oh well, that's as it is, I suppose. Tell me about your wedding tomorrow," I said, and smiled as she burst happily into the details of her much simpler, smaller, happier marriage. She and Alan would settle in a cottage near Barnesdale for awhile, and then, perhaps, they would rejoin the group. I had never seen a woman so excited, I thought fondly, and it made me feel better, knowing I had done the right thing after all.

"—And Will's gone to fetch Friar Tuck— " she continued.

I sat up. "What?"

Elizabeth looked alarmed at my reaction. "Well—we need a priest, Marian. I thought you and Tuck were friends—"

"Yes yes, we're fine, but Hood sent _Will _to get him?" I couldn't believe it, after everything that had happened, he'd still—

"Ye-es," said Elizabeth, now looking at me as if I were crazy. "Will is trustworthy, Marian, he'll bring Tuck safely."

I snorted rudely, struggling to my feet. Hood had been gone at this time the day before, but I didn't care. I didn't care if Hood was swimming the Channel, I was going to track him down.

"Marian—" Elizabeth got up and followed me on my determined stomp out of the cave.

As it turned out, I didn't have to go very far. Hood was sitting calmly in front of the fire, ladling some porridge into one of the simple wooden bowls. Much was nowhere to be seen.

"You should not be stomping so much," Hood said without turning, "your back is still healing."

"The devil take my back!" I snapped, planting my hands on my hips. "You sent _Will_ to fetch Tuck?" Hood set the bowl and stood up to face me.

"I didn't send him, he volunteered, and after he saved your life, I thought he deserved to be trusted."

"Oh, _after _ he saved my life, you can trust him, but not _before_ you send him to rescue Elizabeth?"

"Marian—" began Elizabeth.

"Not now, Elizabeth. Is that really what you want me to accept?"

"What is this about?" Hood said, jaw jutting forward. "You may not like Will, but that does not mean he is not trustworthy. I'm surprised at you, Lady Marian, I thought you were more logical than this."

The censure in his words, if not in his tone, had the hackles on my back rising in fury. "If he had acted in a trustworthy manner, then I would be logical! I do not make snap judgments, especially not against men who help my friend and me. I'm surprised by_ you _Hood, that you do not give me credit enough to think that I may have a legitimate reason. You trust me to help you with your capers, but not to be informed in my opinions? And _this _is the savior of England?" I spat out the words bitterly, infuriated that he thought me a scared little girl. I was seventeen years old, for Heaven's sake, and no one's fool.

Hood opened his mouth to retort, his face even more expressionless than before, but I jumped in before he could say anything, "Your trusted friend Will was standing in the clearing before he killed Greasby. Standing there, watching me try to fight him off, and he did nothing! It took my screaming for help to make him move himself, and when he did, he slaughtered the man like cattle! Now I may not have liked Greasby, especially not after he maimed me and attacked me, but your _Will Scarlet_ is inhumanly cold. You may trust him with _your _life, or even mine, but never, _ever_ let me catch you making decisions for other people, _especially _not Tuck."

"You think I would endanger Tuck?" Hood asked, "Tuck has been my friend for far longer than ever _you _have known him, and I would never make the mistake of sending someone I did not trust to fetch him here."

"Yes," I drawled sarcastically, "because you've never been known to make mistakes, now have you?"

There was a charged silence. Elizabeth, who had originally been poised to interrupt and calm me down, now sat back, her eyes wide. I stepped away from Hood, and stretched my arms out. It hurt, which only served to make me angrier.

"If he was so trustworthy, why didn't he act to help someone in need? Why did he stand there and do nothing? It could be that you don't know your own men very well, Robin Hood." I turned and walked back to the cave, my head high, my aching back straight.

"Well, I must say Marian, for all I admire you, you do lack style," Elizabeth murmured from behind me. I snorted again, striding about the cave.

"You sound like Much," was all I could think to say.

"Good. At least he makes sense. Marian, you may say anything you want here, that is true, but you just insulted _Robin Hood_! That is the one thing you Do. Not. Do,"

"Will Scarlet is dangerous and unpredictable, Elizabeth!"

"You say you do not make snap judgments, but you're judging based upon one encounter, and who knows what his motives actually were? Tell me honestly, you would not have this kind of reaction if you had only ever seen Will on my wedding day, would you? Again, the snap decision. You cannot form your opinion of people from one instance!"

I looked at her incredulously. "I could have been killed, or raped, and he might not have moved a muscle. How do you think that makes me feel towards him? That's a pretty large thing to trivialize as you and Hood seem so bent on doing."

"Robin. His name is Robin, Marian. And I agree, it is damning, but that doesn't mean he is guilty of anything. And I expect, if you ask him, he will tell you directly. He is honest, for all he is terrifying. I do not blame you for being afraid of him, but that does not make him incompetent."

I was staring at her in wonder. "Since when have you spoken like this?" I asked, for her arguments were well-reasoned and she spoke with no fear, as she had done in the castle.

"I have always spoken like this," she said, smiling, "now the world gets to know it, too."

I shook my head, calmer now. "I just—I don't trust him."

"Regardless, he is bound to return shortly with Tuck, or he will have Robin after him, which I doubt he would relish. Maybe then you can talk to him."

My heart stuttered a bit, at the thought of looking into the cruel, disinterested eyes and challenging him. But I needed to, or the rift between Hood and myself would only grow. But I wouldn't apologize, not yet. Not until I was sure.

I sank down slowly onto the palette that served as my bed, sighing in pain as my muscles stretched a bit against my stitches. They did not hurt nearly so much today, but it would still take time for me to be on my feet completely. And now that I had shouted at their leader, I doubted I would be quite so popular at dinner tonight.

To restless to sleep, I stared across the cave, imagining all the things I would do when I was able to do more than lie on my stomach, when I could finally stretch my legs the way the forest was inviting me to.

I would start by striding away, back to my manor, and my life, with no help from Hood or Will or Much or any of these men.

That would show them.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

I may have entered the cave in cold silence, but when Will returned in the afternoon, with two others besides, I hurried as fast as I could out into the dappled sunlight. Tuck, his pate shining, deep crease in his forehead, slid off Guillaume's horse and came to clasp my hands in his. Mary, mounted up in front of Will, exclaimed "My lady!" and jumped down clumsily before anyone had the chance to help her. She stumbled a bit, righted herself, and sprinted to our side.

I was overjoyed to see them both. While I had been Greasby's target, and therefore in much more danger, it was an enormous relief to see the two of them safe, smiling, and right in front of me. There was a mass of words as we reunited, and assurances of well-being, and brief, over-simplified summaries of our activities. I could not remember smiling so much in my life before, and soon my cheeks were hurting with Mary's questions and Tuck's praising of various figures of Catholicism for my safe arrival in the camp.

But Will was skulking in the trees behind Tuck, and I knew that he wouldn't be there for much longer. My argument with Hood had pushed me to _know_, not just guess, what Will's motives had been in the forest. Excusing myself and hurriedly pointing out the cave to Mary, I followed the man and the horse. When I had gotten far enough away from camp that neither of my friends would be able to hear me, I called his name.

He turned, unsurprised, and I felt a small twinge of annoyance. He had known I was after him, had he? Well, did he also know what I wanted, then? Would he be completely unsurprised to hear what I wanted from him? He was looking at me in annoyed indulgence, the way one would look at an idiot who was prepared to share what he thought to be the secret of life. I ground my teeth as I approached, already frustrated with him without him even needing to speak a word.

"Yes, milady? Did you want something?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact." I paused to take a breath, my eyes determinedly fixed at the air in front of me.

"Yes?"

"I wanted to ask," I began acidly, "I wanted to ask you a question about what happened in the forest. When you killed Greasby."

"That had to happen, milady. You did not think that we would just—"

"Yes yes yes, I know it had to happen. I am not questioning that," I cut in, knowing full well that only a few days ago, I had done just that. Now, though, I realized that it had been the only thing to do. Will could not have left an enemy as dangerous as Greasby alive so close to the camp. But that was not what I wanted to talk about. "I am questioning—I wanted to ask—" _Just spit it out, Marianne_. "Why didn't you step in before?"

He blinked. He had not been expecting that, I could see, and it took him a moment to master his surprise. I had not seen any emotion in that face before, and I was just as nonplussed to have caused it.

But I pressed on. "I know you were there before I saw you, for if you had not been and you intended to step in immediately, you would not have been watching it. You were there before, and you did nothing. Why?" Now I was looking right at him as I spoke, and I could see him clench his jaw, could see the muscle in his cheek working, and I did not know why. It was a simple question, after all.

"I was watching you fight him," he said quietly, his voice laced with such condescension I recoiled, as if I had been hit. "I thought you were doing a very good job, considering."

" 'Considering'? Considering I was injured, or considering I'm a woman, or considering I'm a _noble_ woman? You thought that since I was doing such a '_good job_', I must not need help. Me, a small, injured woman against a man four times my size and strong to boot? You thought to watch, and not step in until I asked you to? You thought I was merely experimenting with my strength, then, that I didn't really need help at all."

"I did help you!"

"Only after I saw you and _begged _you to step in and help me. But you're a hero, Will Scarlet, fighting as you do with Robin Hood's band. So you must be chivalrous as well. How good of you to wait for me to specifically ask you to save me from being raped and murdered. Otherwise you might have been intruding somewhere you were not needed and then where would we be?"

He was silent now. I saw his chest rising and falling slightly, and his eyes boring holes through the back of my skull, but I was getting enjoyment out of his anger, and I didn't stop.

"Hood stands behind you and his trust in you, but I must admit I don't agree. A man who can watch such things without wanting to act to aid the victim must truly be a vindictive bastard, not to be trusted. Rejoice in the trust your friends have in you, Scarlet, for no one else will be so understanding. Certainly not me, the woman you would have watched being raped and killed in cold blood."

"You know nothing," he said softly, moving away from me, into the forest.

"Then explain it to me," I shot after him. He held my gaze for a moment, looking as if he was about to open his mouth to say something, then thinking better of it. He turned and walked away from me, deeper into the forest, and I felt the silence close in around me.

When I got back to the camp, Elizabeth was back with Alan. The two were talking animatedly to Tuck, who sat listening, smiling slightly and nodding at both of them. None noticed as I re-entered the clearing, but Mary was by my side in seconds.

"Are you all right, milady?"

I looked at her in surprise. "I'm fine, Mary."

"I saw you go after Will Scarlet, and I thought something was wrong. And now I see you're upset." She was looking at me wisely, and I was again struck by how much I underestimated her. She was intelligent and shrewd, and I had missed her.

But should I tell her of my history with Will? To whom else did it matter, besides those who already knew about it? No, I would not persuade her to think anything about Will than the conclusion she would come to on her own. And she would not be here much longer, anyway. No, better to leave it alone for now.

"There was a misunderstanding between the two of us, which I fear has not been resolved. Nothing as drastic as I'm sure my face is telling you, Mary. I must admit, I feel restless, not being able to move much farther than these trees here, and with an injury besides. I can't wait until I am well enough to really move around again," I said gloomily, going to sit by the mouth of the cave, my legs crossed in front of me in a way I would never have done at court.

Mary was smiling. "You just want to be doing something."

"Absolutely. I feel useless here, Mary. And it's not because I can't be of some help to them, but I'm feeling more and more that I can't help them _here_."

"So you wish to leave, then?" She was looking at me, but I was staring out at the surrounding forest, thinking.

"I don't know. I don't know if I—" I stopped as I saw a large figure out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head in time to see John Little step out of the line of trees. Behind me, Mary sucked in a breath as she took in his size and breadth. I, however, had seen the expression on his face, and knew that he was ready to start our argument again.

"What?" I said rudely. Mary looked at me in mild panic, but I ignored her, fixing my eyes firmly on the giant in front of me. I had been completely unsatisfied with my discussion with Scarlet, and this man would reap the result.

"Still here?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Can't move too fast, you see. Bad back."

He grunted. "Not a good excuse. You can leave any time."

"Glad to have your permission, _sir_."

He snorted again, and turned away from me. I should have been happy to let it go, since I had had the last word, but the fact that my barb had rolled off his back irked me, and I called out, "One of these days, you're going to tell me why you hate me so much."

He turned back and looked at me. "You're here."

"Not a good excuse. _You _can leave any time."

As he walked away, Mary looked at me in astonishment.

"Not very good at making friends, are you milady?"

I looked after John, who had sat down at the fire with Tuck, Alan, and Elizabeth. A man, to whom I had done nothing, but who was still determined to hate me.

"It appears not."

"How do you feel?"

Elizabeth turned toward me, eyes shining, nervous smile flitting around her mouth. She didn't need to answer. I embraced her then, careful of my back, careful not to wrinkle her dress. How I would miss her, and her good common sense, her easy joy, her company. If Mary had not come unexpectedly, I would have been truly alone once Elizabeth and Alan were married.

"You deserve this. Be happy, and don't hurry back."

I did not say that I would probably never see her again. A wedding is no time for such things.

Elizabeth's real wedding was infinitely better than the first. The first had been steeped in pomp and pageantry, a marriage for show than anything else. It was as much an invitation to gossip and make matches of one's own as it was to witness the joining of two lives.

But this wedding, this was a true celebration, as beautiful as it was brief. Tuck was simple man preaching to simple people. There was no need for him to drag out a ceremony between two people who cared more for each other than for how pretty the speeches spoken of them were. Elizabeth and Alan were ardent, nervous, and happy, and I could not fight the tears that pricked the backs of my eyes. She was so happy, so lovely, so in love. I had done right, _I had done right_.

There was a small feast after the ceremony. There were no musicians beside Alan in the group, and his hands were shaking too much to play, so there was no dancing, or revelry of the conventional kind. But as the couple took their leave, along with Gilbert and Bowman, to travel to the house Hood had secured for them, there was genuine sorrow to see them leave. The two of them had brought such uncommon joy to the camp, a place so usually serious and focused, that none wanted to see them go. But they had to go to reach home by nightfall, and so go they did, leaving behind them a quieter, sadder, darker camp.

I had not spoken to Hood since our argument the day before. I had felt his eyes on me during the joking and laughing of the feast, and I had felt that he had been trying to say something to me. But I was still angry with him for not believing me, and for trusting Will so blindly that he would not give my story credit. Will had certainly not defended himself well yesterday, and I was still angry about that night in the forest. I still saw Greasby sometimes, his neck open, spurting blood all over my face and chest.

I was not ready to forgive.

But Hood did not wait for me to talk to him this time. I had risen from my seat near the fire, and had walked into the first layer of trees that encircled the cave. He followed me so closely I could not hear him, but I was still unsurprised by his voice next to me.

"Lady Marian."

"I don't want another argument," I said, turning to look at him. He looked tenser than he had before, and it both annoyed and saddened me that I had that effect on him. But I had missed him over the days when we did not speak. I would never tell him, though.

"That makes two of us. I hear you spoke to Will."

I shook my head wryly. "More like spoke _at _Will. He had no explanation for me."

Robin's forehead crinkled slightly, a true sign of his confusion. "He has a very good explanation, actually. I would have thought he would tell you of it to clear his name. Apparently not." He came to lean on the tree I was next to, and I could see how tired he was, though there were no outward signs.

"What's wrong?" I asked suddenly, as something fell into place. He looked at me, his eyes cutting right through me in that level gaze of his.

"Maybe nothing," now he looked away into the forest, his jaw jutting slightly. "But there are rumors that the Prince has leant some of his personal guards to the Sheriff to find you. Yes, they have discovered your disappearance, and Greasby's as well, though that is not a mystery. We're going to have to move camp in a few days."

I sighed and leaned on the tree myself, feeling all the energy rush out of me. "Maybe I should just go. Save you the trouble."

"We do it often, Lady Marian, it would be no trouble. And besides, you are not healed enough to withstand a long horseback ride. You cannot go."

I looked at him. He had said it impassively, matter-of-factly, so I could not pretend to myself that there were feelings behind his pure reason. It would not do to have me ride off only to open my wounds and be unable to return to call off the hunt. That was all. I looked away.

"But I _will_ go. When I am strong enough. You do not need me here, and I must admit, I am tired of sitting around and waiting for something to happen. And you cannot be happy to let me stay, a danger to your entire group."

"You've seen the men, haven't you?" he asked me quietly, his eyes fixed on me. "Only a handful of them knew how to fight when they came to me. Hardly any knew anything of living in the forest, living off the land. And yet, here they are, survivors. Survivors because they learned something that was not in their nature to learn, and learned it well. If you wish to not be in danger here, then all you need to do is learn how to live like we do. It is not so hard. Boys younger than Gilbert have."

I did not miss the past tense. "Have?"

He turned his eyes away from me now, back into camp where some of the men still sat and drank and talked. John Little shared a flagon with Friar Tuck, looking for all the world like a happy, decent sort of man. Farther off, Gilbert and Adam sat laughing uproariously at a story Much was telling.

"There have been others. Some of them left to find better lives elsewhere, like Elizabeth and Alan. Most, though—"

"Dead," I finished for him.

"Yes. My temper and pride have gotten other men killed before now, and tortured, although that's not something our friends the Sheriff and Guisborne will have told you. Now every choice I make, I make to keep that from happening. You are far safer in my care now than you would have been three years ago, I can tell you. I'm not saying there's no danger in what we do," he said, looking back at me, his voice clear and quiet, "but I am saying that you are welcome to it, if you want it."

I stared at him. "You—are you—asking me to join you?"

"If you want to," he said, and for the first time since I had met him, I detected some stir of something other than impassion in his face. "I would not force you to do something against your will. If you want to go home, then by all means go. You deserve peace after what you've been through. But if you'd like to join us, there will always be a place for you here."

I gaped at him. _Hardly ladylike, might I remind you_. Thousands of thoughts, thousands of things I could have said and perhaps should have said collided in my brain, so that all I could do was nod my head vaguely and look off into the forest, trying to collect myself.

When I looked back, he was gone.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

My back healed over time. Soon, through pestering and pleading, Much agreed to take me on one of his jobs, under the strict provision that I stay out of sight and completely quiet. Sometimes we would hunt for food, others we would check the area surrounding the camp to make sure our base was safe. Still others we lay in wait along a narrow forest road, ready to challenge or aid any passer-by.

Any thrill-seekers would have been disappointed. _I _was disappointed in the beginning. I don't know exactly what I had imagined, sitting in the cave and bored out of my mind, but it had always been a bit more active than this. Only rarely did anyone come down the roads, and even then only one in twenty or so was worth challenging, and barring a near goring from a boar, nothing was particularly exciting around the camp. But I grew accustomed to it. It was not adventure, after all. It was survival.

Hood tried to be open-minded about my forays into the forest, even allowing me to accompany one of his team efforts. He was beginning to regret telling me I could do as I pleased here. In time, I thought, he would regret inviting me to join in the first place. But as I grew to know the men, and learned—slowly—about forest lore and plants, he could not object so much as handpick my missions for me. At first, he allowed me to go with Much, and he sent Much on the easiest of jobs, which did my new friend no favors. Gradually, I spent more and more time in Robin's company, under his supervision, as if he feared that I was a greater threat to myself with my knew knowledge than anything else, and he needed to keep an eye on me.

This enraged John no end. I confess that I did not try and be polite to the giant, and his resentment for me grew and grew over the following days. I did not try to tell him that I did not want his place as Robin's closest friend. I did not tell him that my feelings were far from the friendship of men. I did not want to offer him any kind of comfort, as he was far from comforting to me.

It happened on a cloudy day. Robin was breaking acorns in his hands, throwing first the cap and then the nut far into the trees. We were seated in a root outcrop off of an old deer track. Whatever conversation we had been having had died minutes ago, and now the companionable silence was punctuated by birdsong and the occasional _thock_ of an acorn hitting a tree.

I was running the frayed hem of my gown between my fingers, thinking of the trunk of heavy, ornate dresses I had left behind, and trying to picture myself navigating Sherwood Forest in them. The image was so comically impossible that I smiled down at my hands.

"What?" I turned to look at Robin, who was regarding me, head against a tree, an indefinable expression in his eyes. I smiled wider, shaking my head. "Stupid thoughts, nothing more." I did not want to tell him that I had been imagining staying in the forest.

"Ah." There was a pause. "I never know what you're thinking."

I gave a short, bemused sort of laugh. "I could say the same of you, sir. And yes you do know what I'm thinking. You finish sentences for me all the time."

"In conversation, yes. It's not hard to guess when you're speaking, or shouting, at me. But I mean when you're not speaking. I never know what's going on in your head when you're in your own thoughts."

This was so unexpected that I gaped at him. We had hardly ever spoken to each other, even in our missions together. It had been an understanding between us, I thought. No conversation needed. Now, yet again, he was surprising me. He never stopped surprising me.

I leaned toward him, my folded arms resting on the roots between us. "I never know what you're thinking. Not when we talk, not when we don't. For all the time I have spent with you, Master Hood, I feel I do not know you at all."

He looked at me. "That's not true."

I blinked, startled again. "It isn't?"

"No. You know me as well as I know you, Lady Marian."

I smiled wryly, though my stomach was turning as he held my gaze. "Then we know an unfortunately small amount about each other, sir."

"If you say so, milady."

"But…" I trailed off, desperate to keep this conversation alive, now that it had started. "We know enough."

"Enough for what?"

There was a moment, a small moment, before it happened, when I understood what was coming. It came on my like a wave, the understanding, the anticipation, so that I was already blushing and nervous as I pushed myself up on my hands, and leaned toward where he sat, immobile, scarcely breathing. He would need to come toward me, as well, and for a long second he paused, the stupid man. Hadn't he known that I had wanted this to happen ever since that night I had first felt my skin jump as we sat together in the dark? Couldn't he tell from what my eyes were telling him?

Then he sat forward, too, and reached a hand to my face, to cup in his palm as he kissed me softly on the lips.

Only it never happened. An instant before his hand reached my face, a voice boomed along the deer track, making us jump apart.

"ROBIN!" There was no mistaking it. John Little had found us. Within three seconds he had walked into view. Blushing furiously and cursing my bad luck, I turned again to my hem, flicking away the mud that I had picked up on our walk. I would not look at Hood.

"What is it, John?" asked Robin, sounding concerned.

"It is almost sundown," snapped John, folding his arms across his wide chest. His tone was of deepest censure. "You said you'd be back hours ago to report." He shot me a reproachful glare.

Robin swore under his breath, surprising me again. I had never heard him use crude language before. I had thought him incapable.

"I'm sorry, John," he said, and he sounded remorseful, too. They were good friends, if Robin was allowing his feelings to slip into his voice and—I stole a glance—face. "I'll come back now. Damn, I forgot I was reporting early today." He jumped to his feet, following right behind John back toward camp without a backwards glance at me, where I sat, collecting myself.

When I had calmed my breath, I got up and ran after them through the forest.

* * *

"So Marian, tell us about yourself," Much said over dinner two nights later. It had poured rain all day, making venturing out of the cave impossible. To keep spirits high and tempers in check, Much and Adam had entertained the group with stories periodically. Much was full of them, and he had just left us howling about a particularly embarrassing encounter. I smiled, glad to have something to do beside not look at Robin Hood to see if he was not looking at me.

"I don't have any stories that beat you being bested by an eighty-year-old monk, Much. Much though I would like to say that I do." Mary grinned at me from her place across the cave, near Will Scarlet, who was carving something and looking exceptionally bored. Much laughed as well, sliding up to me across the cave floor, moving his hands as if illuminating a particularly difficult subject.

"It doesn't have to be a funny story. It can be a sad story, or a romance, or something. Just tell us a little about yourself."

"Much," Robin said quietly.

"You've heard all kinds of things in this camp about us," put in the usually quiet Gilbert, "but we don't know anything about you."

There were nods of agreement from around the fire. Only John seemed totally uninterested in the conversation.

I glanced around the circle at the men, and even at Mary and Tuck. They knew nothing of me, really, before I had come to England. I had never told them, had never thought to tell them. I had thought that no one would want to know. I had never imagined that an entire group of strong-willed, determined people would need to know. But they did, and I saw that, and so I nodded and said, "All right."

The men settled in a little closer as I searched for the right words to begin with.

"I'll tell you—I was—I was born at my father's manor, fifty miles from the Norman Court at Poitiers. My mother was not my father's wife at the time of my conception, but his wife was barren, and when he heard my mother was with child, he had his first marriage annulled by the Church. He hoped to gain a son and heir, and if not that, at least a wife with the ability to bear children. He was disappointed when I was born. My mother was barely more than a peasant, thrown into high society by my father for the sake of an heir," I smiled wryly and threw a pinecone into the fire. "Needless to say, that did not make the Norman Court very happy. After that, my father tried his hardest to please them, to avoid the ruin that would come if he fell further out of favor with the king. When I was a year old, I was betrothed to the son of the king's second cousin, which my father thought would—"

"Betrothed?" put in Adam.

"Yes," I said simply. "It is not so uncommon here, as well, for two people to become betrothed very young."

"But you're not betrothed now, are you." This from a man I hardly knew, down the circle to my left. _James_, I guessed, but I was not certain. It had not been a question, but I treated it as if it had been.

"No. No, he died when I was eight. Brain fever. By that time, my father had already begun to sink deeper in debt and become frustrated by his inability to father a living heir. I had four brothers who died before they were christened, and a sister once, when I was five. She was four when she died." I trailed off for a second, staring into the fire. I had often wondered what would have become of the two of us, my sister and me, had she lived. Now I wondered again, briefly, what she would have been like. Would she have approved of this alliance with outlaws?

Well, it hardly mattered, anyway.

"And then when I was fourteen, I joined the Norman Court. Of course, after my fiancé died, no man would go near me to make a suitable match. I have no dowry, and it is whispered that misfortune follows my father wherever he goes. So, for all my waiting on the king and playing the games of intrigue the court specializes in, by societal standards I have nothing to show for it. Things got to a point where my father thought that it would be best to send me away from civilization as possible to safeguard the one asset he still has left. And so I was sent here."

"You waited on the king?" John growled, sounding interested despite himself.

"Well, not really," I tried to clarify, "he had his favorites, and I'm obviously not one of them. No, I was never very close to the king. Besides, I'm too young and too poor to be of any real bother to him."

"What's he like?" Mary murmured. The group was fascinated, and I found myself smiling at their curiosity.

"Cold. Stiff. Being a member of the family he was born into does not recommend him to be kind. He's as poorly liked there as he is here. The only difference is he _is _there instead of here. At least, most of the time. And there's no doubt that he is powerful. John is afraid to take his land, even when the king is as far away as the Holy Land. That says something, if nothing else does. But no, the king isn't a kind man, or a brave man, or even necessarily a good man. He's a strong man, and he wears his power well."

There was a silence around the circle for a moment. Awkwardly, for I did not know how to end a story, I said, "that's all," and shrugged my shoulders.

There was silence around the cave. Mary still smiling, but this time it was softer, more of a congratulations then anything else. She made a small face at me, and I realized how tense I must have seemed. Tuck was regarding me quietly, his face impassive. I did not look at Hood.

" 'That's it'?" said John, his booming voice filling the cave. "That's the entirety of your life, right there?"

"I—"

"That's all that's happened to you? You were born, your siblings died, you were betrothed, you were not betrothed? That's it?"

"Yes, actually," I said, angered by his tone. "Sorry my life isn't as exciting as you no doubt expected it to be."

"John, maybe you should—" Much began quietly.

"Stuff it, Much, when I want your interference, I'll ask for it."

"Why would you ever _ask _for interference?" came Adam's voice from across the cave. "Calm down, lad, and then ask your question."

But this simple suggestion only seemed to enrage the man further. "You ask her to tell us something about herself, and all she tells us is where she was born and how many lords and ladies she knows. Does that matter to the like of us? Does it? No, no it doesn't. She gives us all the useless background of her life, but doesn't even think to add _why_ she's here, _why _she wants to help us. And does it matter to any of you to ask? No, of course not, not with you all so charmed by her you can't even think straight—"

"John!" Gilbert hissed.

"No, instead you swallow the tripe she shares with us about the king, and don't even consider the fact that she may well be spy for _them_, that she may be here to collect information, or she may have run away with Greasby in the first place, and then displeased him, which is not difficult to imagine, considering, and is now trying to get back into the Sheriff's good graces by learning as much as possible about us. And you all so blinded by her flesh that you don't care that she hasn't given us one good piece of information about herself except for the fact that she can _lie_ well. You lot're digging your own graves with this one, I tell you."

There was silence, except for the patter of the rain and boom of the thunder. They were all, I knew, contemplating the possibility that I was, in fact, a spy. I had never been as repulsed and infuriated by anyone as I was at this moment, staring across the cave at the enormous man who glaring back with such enmity. What had I ever done to him to make him hate me this much? How had I insulted him, that he now took such pain to make everyone think me un-trustworthy? Then Robin spoke, his eyes on the arrow he was fletching, "What exactly are you saying, John?"

The silence was tense. Much sat close to me, barely blinking, as the two closest friends in the group fought without even glancing at each other. Gilbert sat, pale and wide-eyed, Adam watched through the cloud of smoke from his pipe, Bowman ran his fingers along his bow string. Tuck was watching John, a look of pity on his face, and Mary sat silently, hands in lap, eyes cast downward, as she had been taught by her mother and her mother's mother. And in the corner, Will Scarlet whittled, not looking up.

"I'm saying, Robin, that we know nothing about her, nor have done since the moment we first made contact with her!"

"We know enough," said Robin quietly, and I blushed at I met his gaze for an instant, remembering what had almost happened in the forest.

"Enough for what?" John cut through harshly. "Enough to know why she's contacted us in the first place? Enough to know her reasons for wanting to learn from us? Enough to know what she's hiding? You're so blinded by her, you're not thinking straight," he repeated, almost pleadingly, "you don't know her, none of us do, and—"

"I hope, John," said Will quietly from the corner, and his eyes left his work to focus on the big man, "that you're not questioning Robin's leadership?"

The silence grew even more tense as the two men looked at each other.

"No, of course not, but—"

"Now, I don't pretend to be the best man for understanding what motivates people, but I seriously doubt Lady Marian is guilty of any of the things you've accused her of. She was thoroughly invested in saving Lady Elizabeth, she has no great love for her Norman upbringing, and before I killed Greasby, I saw how hard she fought him. She was his captive, not his willing companion," I resisted the urge to shudder at this. "And as for her charming the men to distraction, well, I would call the Lady Marian a lot of things, but 'charming' would not be one of them. So if you have a question to ask her," he continued, steel creeping into his voice, "I suggest _asking _her, not shouting at her."

I stared at the man in amazement. I had never heard him string so many words together before, and on _my _behalf, when all I had ever done to him was yell at him and bleed on him…I felt, justifiably, mortified.

John, grinding his teeth, his eyes blazing with rage and disgust, turned to me. We looked at each other a long while before he spoke, and when he did, his question was not what I had originally expected.

"Why are you still here?"


	19. Chapter Eighteen

"I—What?"

I had expected John to roll his eyes, but he had me fixed in his gaze, and repeated his question with a patience I had thought beyond him.

"Why are you still here?"

I looked at him, helpless for a moment. How could I begin to answer that question in a way that he would accept?

"I could not travel, because of my back…but—"

"That was at first. Your back's healed now. So why are you here now?"

I did not allow myself to glance at Robin. I would not look at him. I would not tell them the truth. At least, not the most important part.

But the least important sounded childish even to me.

"I—I want to help."

John was not the only who snorted in derision, though he was the loudest. "You? How can you possibly help us? You, who can't get on a horse unaided, you who wouldn't know which way is north if it was your profession, you who have no strength in your arms or courage in your spine? Have you ever had to find your own food?"

I was obviously meant to answer. "No."

"Do you know how to travel without being heard?"

"No."

"Can you shoot a bow or wield a staff?"

"No."

"So now how is it even probable that you could be one of us here in this place?" He should have looked triumphant as he said this, I thought vaguely through my humiliation. He should be glorying in my defeat. I would have done so, if I had so soundly crushed a hated opponent into the ground. Instead, he just looked bitter.

There were tears in my throat, and I had to swallow several times before I opened my mouth to say, very quietly. "There are other things I can do."

I had meant it to be a defense, but I realized even as I spoke the words, the way in which John Little would take them. I closed my eyes before I could see his reaction, and said, "That's not what I meant. Believe me, John Little, there are none who know better than me my own uselessness. You were right to accuse me of staying longer than I needed to, and to say that I have very few skills to contribute. It would be sheer folly for me to try to stay here now, anyway. There is a search party after me, as you are no doubt aware, and the longer I stay away the more suspicious my return will be."

There was a silence. Then, without looking up from his task, Robin said, "Return?"

I glanced at him then. He would not look at me, just as I had avoided his gaze not a minute earlier. I found I could not look at him, or at anyone, as I confessed the plan that I had been forming in the long days in the forest. Instead, I looked at the fire, and steeled myself.

"I will return to the Court. That is the only way to diffuse any doubt about my whereabouts these past weeks. They have found Greasby's body. They will question me, and I will tell them the truth." Any attention that had not been focused immediately snapped to me. From the corners of my eyes, I could see the men exchange glances incredulously.

"I won't tell them the whole truth, such as the whereabouts of your camp or even what it looks like. Those things I will lie about. But in the essentials, I intend to be completely truthful. That I was kidnapped and brutalized by Greasby, who was then killed viciously by one of Robin Hood's men. From there, that I was taken to the camp, and kept there for weeks. You'll have to help with that, John. I'll need some believable bruises on my face and the like. That I finally managed to escape at night, and picked my way through the forest at night until I found my out into the open air. That I begged passage on a cart to Nottingham Castle. Even the innocent truth can sound terrible when said like that."

I lifted my eyes. Silence reigned in the little cave. Robin was looking at me now, his hands still. I returned his gaze, and then looked back at John. "So you see, John, I cannot hunt or fight or walk unheard in the woods. But can you lie so convincingly that even you begin to believe yourself?"

"And how would that help us?" John asked, shock apparent in his voice.

"Use your brain, John Little," said Tuck, his voice quiet, his brow wrinkled. "She means to gain the Sheriff's trust by lying to him about what happened to her, and then pass on information to you." His scornful words were for John, but the disapproving tone with which he said them was for me.

"But that's—" Much started.

"You can't mean—" Mary protested.

"That's not a bad—" said Will.

"No."

Robin had spoken softly, his eyes now back on his hands as they moved about their task in precise, even motions.

I cursed myself silently. This had not been the way I had wanted to put forth the proposition, but John had needled me into revealing it, and now I would have to defend it publicly.

Well, Much _had_taught be the best defense is an attack.

"Why not?" I asked. "It's not a bad idea."

"It's dangerous, milady." This came from Gilbert, spoken softly.

"So is the life you lead. I accepted that when I helped you help Elizabeth, and in the days I have lived here. I have not seen battle, as John was so good as to point out, but I have accepted the possibility of it."

"That's not the same thing at all," said John, who now seemed thoroughly confused about what he was defending.

"No, it's not but—"

"It's not," Robin's voice, quiet as it was, cut through my protests. "John is right. Mary is right. It is too dangerous, and you are nowhere near prepared for it. I refuse your offer of help."

My mouth snapped shut, stunned. Not long ago he had offered me a place in Sherwood, living among them. And now he was refusing to accept the much better strategy I had come up with, and refusing me along with it. For how could he say I could live here but not return to the court, if what he was worried about was my safety? I was heartily tempted to mention this contradiction to him in front of his men, but I knew him enough to know that would not make him any more likely to give in to me.

So instead of arguing, as I so desperately wanted to do, I once again played the good Norman girl, pursed my lips over any words I might speak out of terms, stared down at my hands, and waited

* * *

"Will?" I said it softly, and when he didn't look up, I said his name again, louder. This time he glanced my way, saying nothing. Sunlight peeked through the thick canopy overhead, dappling his face and chest with gold.

"I need to ask you something."

He nodded, and I had the feeling he knew what I was going to say before I said it.

"Why didn't you step in sooner? With Greasby?"

"You've asked me this before."

"You never answered me. Not really. Why?"

He looked down at me from his perch on his branch, considering. In the silence, I hoped desperately that I had been right about him; that he wanted to make amends with me. For all his silence and his apparent nonchalance, I thought there was something more to him. I was depending on there being something more to him.

But I couldn't push him. That was the thing with these men, I was learning. I could not talk them into anything. Rather, I would need to use silence to do my persuading for me. So I stood where I was, looking up at the bright sky between the leaves far above my head, giving him his privacy.

"My wife died two years ago." I looked at him, surprised in spite of myself. It should not have been such a shock that the man had been married, but somehow it had still caught me off guard. "You weren't here then, you don't know how it was. Things are bad now—they were worse then. The Sheriff's men, and Guisborne's, were everywhere. They don't do this now—mostly because of us—but they would come into your home, and take your belongings, terrify your family, rape your wife if you were giving them trouble, and throw you in the gaol for a few nights to teach you a lesson or two." I stared at him, aghast. I had a feeling I knew what had happened to his wife, and it made me burn with shame and anger, but I didn't prompt him.

"I wasn't home when they came for me. I'd been making some talk about joining up with Robin. I'd done some jobs with him before, had helped out, but hadn't been involved enough to warrant more than a day in the stocks, even by the Sheriff's estimation. But it was the talking that did it. See, Lady Marian, even though the whole shire is being ravaged by them, there are still some peasants who believe cooperating with Guisborne and the Sheriff is the best way to gaining their freedom. Never mind that it only gives them more power over you. If there's a coin or two more than what Robin Hood can get you, or a job for you at the castle, then who's going to think twice about what they're betraying? Someone who I shouldn't have trusted heard me talk about joining Robin, and reported me, and they came for me. But I wasn't home. I wasn't home, and my wife was. She was—she was a good lass, a strong lass, and brave with it. She should have run, but she couldn't stand to see our home burned down. They caught her, and—they—you know what they—I don't need to say it, do I?"

I shook my head, but he wasn't looking at me. "No."

"They killed her when they were down. Left her to bleed with our house burning down around it. We were just peasants. What could we really have done? I found the ones that did it, eventually. I found them, and I killed them. Cut them up. I've always been good with knives. And that was when I joined Robin for good."

"And gained your nickname, no doubt. Will Scarlet?"

"That too. So now you know why I hesitated. Didn't mean to, but I don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't seen me. Have no idea. So there you are. Explain enough for you?"

I nodded again, feeling as though I had been hit in the stomach. I had wanted to know, and I was glad I did now, but it weighed on me, dragging my shoulders down and pushing my head to the ground. At the same time, if this was what was done under the Sheriff, then my plan was right. They needed to be stopped, and I needed to help.

It was this determination that gave me the courage to clear my throat and call up to him, "Then it seems to me you owe me a favor. As a debt of honor, shall we call it?"

He looked straight at me, and I could see that he knew what I was talking about. At least, he knew I was asking for help in my efforts in convincing Robin. I doubt he would ever have guessed the rest of the plan.

"What?"

"I'll come up there, and we'll talk."

* * *

"No."

"You owe me."

"You're crazy."

"Maybe. But you still owe me."

"That was before I knew you were insane. No."

"That's only because you're afraid."

"I am not afra—"

"I am as well. And I might well be crazy, but that doesn't mean it's not a good plan, or that it shouldn't be done. My sanity has nothing to do with my righteousness."

"This is not a joke, Lady Marian."

"I'm well aware, Will Scarlet, which is why I'm asking for your help. If it was a joke, I'd be speaking to Much right now."

"You want me to—but that's—no."

"You're forgetting what almost happened to me because of you. You owe me, and I need help. Be chivalrous, at least."

"You could die."

"And I will, eventually."

"I'm not talking about eventuality, Lady Marian. I'm talking about you dying much sooner than you would otherwise."

"You don't know that. I could catch a cold in November, or get married and die in childbirth—"

"Lady Marian—"

"—at least let me choose the way in which I do die. Let me be useful for once in my life. Let me help you bring these men now. Then it won't matter when I die."

"Yes it will. It will to him."

I stared at him in silence.

"You honestly don't see it? That's impossible, you notice too much. You know what I mean. It matters a great deal to him what happens to you, can't you see that?"

"I—"

"Tell me you wouldn't stay here if you had the chance."

"I do. Have the chance. But I'm choosing—"

"Then you're stupid. You should choose—"

"But I'm not. I want to do this. Crazy as it may sound, dangerous and devious and ludicrous and horrible as it is, it will work. With my help, you may be able to destroy them faster than you ever imagined possible. Surely you can see _that_, Will."

"But it's insane."

"I know. But you _do_owe me."

"No chance you'll change your mind?"

"None. None whatsoever."

"Damn."

I swung myself down from my perch with relative agility—courtesy of Much—and landed with a light _thump_ on the ground. Brushing off my hands, I looked up at him, glaring down at me from where he sat on his branch.

"We'd better get started, don't you think?"

* * *

A/N: I'd like to take a moment to apologize profusely for the huge delay there's been in my updating in general. Sophomore year took me by storm, along with my other extracurricular activities, and since I don't have a Time Turner, something had to go. Unfortunately, I chose writing. But now that midterms and my extracurriculars are done, I'll have more time to write (thank God), so I hopefully should have the next installment up soon, as well as Rootbeers, which I haven't stopped writing for, to put any rumors to that effect to bed. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed it, and as always, send me a review to let me know what you think! Thanks so much for your patience. 


	20. Chapter Nineteen

I head the horse ride into camp around early evening

The night air was cold and wet. Another breeze swirled about my face, making me shiver, tempting me to hug my arms about myself, whispering to me to go back to my pallet and save this for another time. But there was no other time.

Every move I made seemed to make a huge clamor on the quiet forest floor. John was right; I was not equipped to live here. I just hoped I wouldn't wake the entire camp with my prowling. I didn't want to be interrupted by John's growling again. Not this time.

I have often wondered, in the years since, if it was my good memory that led me to him, or if he had been aware of someone moving in his vicinity for some time. Either way, I was suddenly slammed violently against a tree, callused hand circling my neck, knife pressed against my throat. I couldn't speak, could barely breathe, with the suddenness of it. His voice was in my ear, harsh and threatening, a voice I had never heard from him before.

"Tell me, trespasser, should I slit your throat now, or wait until after you've begged me not to?"

I had never thought I'd be afraid of Robin Hood with the kind of terror that now ran through every inch of my body, making my chest heave and tears prick my eyes. He couldn't see my face, couldn't know that it was to my throat that he held his knife. He would kill me if I didn't say something, do something to make him realize who it was he held to a tree, but for a moment, the panic made me stupid, and I could do nothing but claw at his arm. It was only when the blade was pressed more closely against my neck and I felt the warm wetness of blood trickling down my throat that I managed to find my voice and croaked, "Robin. Stop,"

"Lady Marian?" His tone changed dramatically, and he released me immediately, only to catch me when my knees buckled and I pitched forward away from the tree, still breathing violently, shaking helplessly. "Sweet Christ. Milady, you shouldn't be walking around at this time. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Are you alright?" His hands, not three seconds ago prepared to choke the life out of me, now so gentle on my shoulders, my back, my hair, stroking, soothing, holding me as I tried to breathe slowly and calmly. He hadn't known it was me. He would not hurt me. But still, the possibility had nearly destroyed me, and I dabbed with trembling fingers at the blood that soaked the neck of my dress.

"I'm sorry. Marian, I'm sorry. Say something. Did I hurt you?"

"I'm—I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm alright."

"What are you doing up now?" he asked, careful not to upset me again. "What possessed you to come out here now, in the middle of the night? I could have killed you." He sounded mortified, and unhappy, and annoyed.

"I wanted to talk to you." The plan that had seemed so important now seemed childish and naïve.

"Why didn't you wait for morning?" He asked incredulously, matching tone for tone the question running through my head.

"Because," I said defensively, not only to him, "during the day you're—rightly—distracted by the running of the camp. And I want to speak to you without being interrupted."

I couldn't see his face. Much like our first conversations, we sat next to each other in the dark. Except now we were not in the castle, and I found my heart pounding for a very different reason.

As if he had read my thoughts, he said "We do always seem to speak more plainly in the dark." There was a tinge of censure in his voice this time.

"But you already know what I'm here to talk to you about."

"Yes, I do. And my answer is still no. It's too dangerous for you, I wouldn't ask you—"

"But you're not asking me. I'm offering to help you, and this is the only way I know how."

"_This _is the only way? _This _is the only way you know to help me?"

"You heard me coming from a long way away. John's right, I wouldn't last very long out here living as you do, trying to help—"

"We can teach you—"

"Only at great cost of time and effort. Neither of which are things you should be wasting at the moment, don't you agree?"

"But you could…"

"I could what? Robin, I'm not going to sit in the cave every day waiting for you to come back. I can't sit still like that when there's nothing else for me to do, because I have no skills here. I 'm not going to be a lady here. I don't want to be a lady here. If I was here, I'd want to be Marian, a member of the group, with all the responsibility that goes with it. But I've never done any of the things common women have grown up doing. I'd be no help to you."

"Elizabeth—"

"Elizabeth's life will be very different from mine. She has time to learn to work, and her husband is not in constant danger of being killed. They are happy, and for now they're safe."

"So you don't want to be happy?" The harshness was back in his voice, but this time it was not deadly. Perhaps it was what had happened earlier, or that we were alone in the forest and I could not see his face, but he was letting his emotions change his voice now. I wished, more than anything, that I could see him.

I sighed, and reached out to where I knew he was. My hand came into contact with the front of his shirt, and I gripped it lightly, leaning toward him. "No, I want very much to be happy. But this…you won't be happy unless you're fighting the Sheriff, and I couldn't take that from you. It's your fight to make, and it needs to be made, I see that."

There was moment of silence, and I realized how close I had come to telling Robin how I felt for him. Well, I had wanted an uninterrupted moment with him.

"But I'm in this now. I want to help, not sit by and wait for news to come back to me. I need to be a part of this, Robin. An active part. And since my particular brand of skills doesn't lend myself to living in the forest, I think there's really only one option for me to consider seriously."

"You don't need to be in this, you could—"

"I want to, though. I _want_ to help you. This isn't even my country, not really, and I want to help you," I chuckled a little, though it was not really funny. "That should tell you something about your persuasive powers, if nothing else does." I let my hand fall, brushing against his leg on its way to earth. I wondered if he felt the little shock that ran through my body at the contact. He had touched me before; not two minutes before, his hands had stroked my back to calm the tremors that still ran through me in little starts. But this brush of hand to leg was more intimate, and it terrified me. My need for him filled me with fear of what I did not know.

And yet I did not know him. I had thought I did, had thought I had gotten the measure of this quiet, serious, honest young man with the calculating gray eyes. I had thought I could judge his character through our meetings, our few conversations. I was that good, I had said to myself. I could figure anyone out.

But he had been a completely different man when he had threatened me. True, he had not known who it was. True, it was in the defense of his own camp, and his men. But he had sounded like something out of a nightmare—a creature who would kill, and who might take pleasure in it. And yet I knew he did not enjoy spilling blood. He did it when it was necessary, but he did not do it gladly. For all that I felt for him, I did not really know him. Not yet.

"You're bleeding," he said, his hands reaching out to touch the column of my throat, which hitched under his fingers. "I cut you. God, I am so sorry, Marian, I just—I was…" it was the first time I had ever heard him lost for words.

"Now tell me, Robin Hood, how does a man who seems so even become so angry?" With all my experience charming and being charming, my voice should have been steady, should not have betrayed how shaken I felt. But his fingertips smoothing the skin of my neck were every bit as unsettling as the knife had been.

There was a silence as he pressed a corner of his sleeve onto the wound to staunch the blood. Then he said, "This is my home."

It was not really an answer. "And if I hadn't been me? What would have happened then?"

"This won't do either of us good, Lady Marian."

"It may help me to know you better."

"I can hardly see how that would be desirable."

"Well if you are going to insist on being slippery, then I'll say that it will help me understand how not to make you press a knife to my throat again."

He sighed in frustration. I had been trying to make him feel guilty, to open up to me. Apparently, it worked, for he opened his mouth to speak. What he said in that quiet voice of his, however, was not what I had expected. "You'll think worse of me if I tell you."

For a moment, I did not know what to say. I had never heard him sound so cautious before. I reached up with my trembling hands and laid them over his. "You are a man, not a god. No man is perfect, Robin, and I would imagine that living the life you do has required you to do some things you aren't proud of. You needn't fear my judgment."

"I don't know what to—to say, exactly." His voice was little more than a whisper, and I wondered, for a second, if that was due to his uncertainty or if he was as affected by my touch as I was by his.

"Tell me a story about yourself, like I told you. That might make it easier." I let my hands fall to my lap, giving him space, and time to think.

"Well…My father died when I was young, and the lands were left in charge of my brother-in-law, John a'Green, until I was old enough to run them. He was a good man, and good to my sister, too, so there was no doubt that he'd stick to his word to my father. I wasn't suspicious back then. I thought that what had been promised would be. I ran a bit wild, for all my sister—Kate—tried to reign me in. She was older than me, and she and John had a little son already. I would often disappear for days only to come back sunburned and dirt covered. To keep me occupied and near the house, John taught me how to shoot and fight, but I still couldn't stay in one place for very long.

"One day, when I was about fifteen, I went off on my own, and ended up miles and miles away on some adventure or other. I forget what it was now. Anyway, when I finally decided to make my way back home, I'd been gone for about two months. What I came back to was…To understand this, you have to understand that Locksley was an estate on legal rent from the lords of Birkencar. It had been that way since the lands were first given to the lords by King William himself, only to be given to the monks of St. Mary's Abbey when the last lord had died. Our lands were fertile, and well-kept, and everyone wanted them, but as long as we paid our dues, no one could take them from us.

"But the monks formed a plan with Guisborne, and when it seemed that I, the rightful heir, would be gone for some time, they killed John a'Green and threw my sister and my nephew out. Will Scarlet and his wife had taken them in, but Kate fell ill and died. All in the time I was gone.

"Well, I was young, and angry, and used to having the run of things. Losing Kate and John was like losing a mother and father. I lost all guidance, and, it seems, all common sense. Guy of Guisborne was in my house, had killed my family, and I thought I wanted vengeance at all costs. I thought that would be what John would have done.

"I gathered a small group of people, maybe four or five villagers, and we tried, inexpertly, I might add, to fight against Guisborne and his men. When we failed, time and again, and Guisborne lashed out at my people, I decided that it was better he was dead than I had a home to go back to. I set fire to the manor. Guisborne escaped, and killed three of my men. I got an arrow in the shoulder for that gem of stupidity.

"All this time, I'd been neglecting my nephew. I thought, Will's wife has her, he's safe. I thought I could do what I wanted to do without needing to think about child rearing. Again, I was stupid. I did not protect them enough, and when Will and I were out, the men came to find my nephew. Molly, Will's wife, had hidden Gilbert in the—"

"_Gilbert?_" I could not help interrupting. "Gilbert is your nephew?"

"Yes, that's him. She had hidden him in the paddock behind the house, but when the men set fire to her home, she tried to stop them, and—"

"Will told me. I know."

"Well, there are other stories like that. Stories of my own stupidity, of my foolhardiness. I've gotten so many people injured, or killed, by helping me. People who shouldn't have been following me, people who would have been better off being led by someone older and wiser and smarter. Everything I learned about fighting I've learned through the death of someone else. I've been wounded, true, but never fatally. And I've gotten wiser, as time went on, but it took a long time. And men still follow me. People still tell stories of my bravery and my triumphs over the Normans. I've been called a hero all my life and I can't bear the shame of it."

"How is this going to make me think less of you?" I asked, incredulous.

"Why shouldn't it? I'm not a hero, Marian. I'm not a good man. I'm the most selfish person alive, allowing other people to die for me, and not thinking through my plans at all. I don't deserve the life I have right now; it's all because of what other people have given that I'm even alive. Now that I can finally see that, I'm doing my best to make sure no one else dies for me. And you, it seems, were on the brunt end of that decision." He sounded so tired, so angry, and so full of self-loathing that I needed to do something, anything, to help.

"You were young, Robin, and—"

"Only two years younger than you are now. The same age Elizabeth is now. And both of you show greater sense and courage than ever I did."

I sighed. Clearly, he was not going to make this easy. I pondered briefly the oddity of the situation, of me trying to soothe the feelings of a man who had nearly slit my throat. But this was Robin, and there seemed no other choice.

"But you led a different life than either of us. We were always forced to obey, and sit quietly. We were not allowed to be children. You regret what you did, and that's good. That shows strength, and humility. You were a boy before, and now you're a man, and a good one. None of us can live perfect lives, not you, not Elizabeth, not me. There will always be something we regret. And that's a good thing. Regret means that we are not like them, not like the Sheriff and Guisborne and the Prince. Whatever happens, you have that. You are not them, Robin."

His lips found mine then, in the dark. The hand that had stopped the flow of my blood now slid up to cup my face, as he kissed me again and again. Shocked with the suddenness of it, I did not respond for a moment, but then my hands found his chest, and I was pulling him closer to me, and he was responding, touching my face, my hair, my shoulders. I began to tremble again, but this time it was not through fear. I had longed for this moment since the first time he had sat next to me in the dark, and I had felt the stirrings in my own body. We were playing with fire, the two of us, and pulling him closer and closer to me, and feeling his tongue slip carefully between my lips, I found I did not care. I wanted this too badly to think of the consequences.

As women, girls like Elizabeth and me had been taught that to enjoy the things a man does to you is sinful and wrong. They happened for the men, and not for us. For us it was to be borne, not sought after or desired by proper young ladies. But I found, as he untied the laces at the back of my dress, and as I pulled his jerkin over his head, running my hands over the smooth, slightly sweaty skin underneath, that the concerns of every nurse, every governess, every priest, and even of my own father no longer mattered here. Here, I could love the way Robin touched my legs, the feeling of the forest floor against my back. Here, I could give the man I could never marry the one thing I had had to offer a husband, and give it willingly. Here I could moan, and cry out in pleasure without being thought wanton and wrong.

All of the daydreams I had had, at the castle and in the forest, too, had been pale, weak, and un-extraordinary things compared to the reality that was Robin. We lay still in each others' arms, until, kissing him lightly, I got up and slipped away, back to the cave and a sleepless night.

There was no turning back now. I had changed things, and I could not change them back


End file.
